Scotland has a population problem

This week’s In Common asks why Scotland is expected to tackle population decline and workforce shortages when it isn’t allowed to control one of the key tools it could use: migration.

There is something almost perfectly British about Scotland being told to solve a problem it is not allowed to control.

The Scottish Government’s new migration proposals are straightforward. A Scottish Visa. A rural visa pilot. A Scottish graduate visa. Lower salary thresholds where Scotland’s labour market demands them. Routes designed around Scotland’s particular demographic and economic circumstances rather than the needs of London and the South East.

The question is not whether these are perfect ideas. They probably are not. The more interesting question is why Scotland has to ask permission to try them.

Scotland’s demographic problem is not imaginary. Its population is expected to begin falling after 2033, while the population ages and the working-age population contracts. The number of people aged 75 and over is projected to rise sharply by 2049, while the number of children and young adults falls.

Migration cannot solve all of this. But it is increasingly difficult to see how Scotland maintains its population, workforce and public services without it.

Migration is also about more than filling vacancies. People pay taxes, have children, establish businesses, keep schools open and sustain communities. Someone moving to a rural Scottish town is not simply another pair of hands in a care home or on a farm. They are potentially another family, customer and reason for a school to remain open.

The Scottish Government’s argument is straightforward: Scotland needs an immigration system that reflects Scottish circumstances. The current system does not.

The Scottish Visa would allow people to come to the UK specifically to live and work in Scotland, with no fixed salary threshold and a potential route to settlement after five years. The proposed Scottish Graduate Visa would give international graduates another two years to build careers here. At the same time, a Rural Visa would test whether migration could be targeted towards communities facing severe recruitment and population problems.

There is practicality here. Scotland has lower average wages than parts of England and rural recruitment problems that a system designed around national averages cannot solve. A care worker, agricultural worker, tradesperson or hospitality worker can be indispensable to a community while falling below a salary threshold designed for an entirely different labour market.

But there is a danger here too.

Migration cannot become an alternative to fixing the problems that make Scotland’s economy less productive and its communities less affordable. If businesses become dependent on overseas workers because wages are low, productivity is weak, or training is neglected, immigration risks becoming a substitute for economic policy.

Nor can migration reverse population decline on its own. People will not move to places where they cannot find somewhere to live, where public services are deteriorating or where there are no meaningful opportunities for their families.

A genuinely Scottish migration policy would therefore have to sit alongside housing, childcare, education, skills, infrastructure, regional development and public services.

But that is precisely why the question of who controls migration matters. Immigration is reserved to Westminster. Holyrood can identify the problem, write the policy, consult employers and produce models for how a Scottish visa could work. But ultimately, someone in London decides whether Scotland is allowed to have one.

And, at least for now, the answer appears to be no.

This is where Andy Burnham’s government presents an interesting test of its own constitutional philosophy.

Burnham has made decentralisation a defining promise, arguing for moving power out of Westminster and giving different parts of the UK greater control over their futures.

But migration seems to be different.

That is understandable. Immigration is under enormous political pressure across Britain. Westminster is attempting to demonstrate that it has migration under control, and giving one part of the UK a substantially different immigration regime would create difficult questions about enforcement, movement and political accountability.

But those difficulties are not an argument for refusing to have the conversation. They are an argument for taking it seriously.

Because the alternative is the strange constitutional settlement we have now: Scotland is expected to grow its economy, sustain its public services, confront population ageing and keep rural communities alive, while one of the most important tools for shaping its future workforce remains outside its control.

Perhaps the proposals would not work, or the public would reject them. Fine. Let Scotland make the case, test the policy and live with the consequences.

The irony is that this should be precisely what devolution is for. Different places have different problems. Different governments should be able to try different solutions. Scotland does not need Westminster to agree with every proposal it makes. It needs Westminster to take seriously the possibility that Scotland might need different answers.

The Scottish Government may have produced another policy paper that never becomes policy. It would be easy to dismiss as another constitutional gesture.

But perhaps the more uncomfortable question is what it says about the Union when a country facing a shrinking and ageing population can identify a problem, propose a solution and still cannot open the door.

Scotland does not need Westminster to guarantee that its ideas will succeed. It needs Westminster to let it try.