No immigration health surcharge for health and social care staff

The "immigration health surcharge" has to be paid by many people from overseas working in the UK in order to access the NHS - not just on behalf of they workers themselves, but also on behalf of their families, at a cost of £400 per person per year.

Migrants working in the health and social care sectors should not have to pay this surcharge. These are people who have come to Scotland to make their lives here and to support our NHS and care services - and at the moment they are putting their own lives at risk in the national effort against the virus.

They will already pay income tax and other taxes besides. They are not "health tourists" - they are key workers whom our public services depend on. They often work in low-paid jobs and this is a substantial extra tax to pay. There is something deeply immoral about charging them these sums to use the NHS when without their work, their expertise, and their courage, it could not function.

Either the Scottish Government should lobby the UK Government to suspend the surcharge, or offer to pay it on behalf of migrant health and social care workers for the duration of the crisis.

To recognise the enormous contribution made by migrant workers in Scotland's NHS and care services by correcting a basic injustice in UK immigration rules.