Scotland needs control of immigration – but the UK refuses to let go

The National

04-05-2025

The latest politico to take up that ­mantle was SNP MP Stephen Gethins who ­recently introduced a brief bill which would have devolved migration. He acknowledged throughout his opening speech that it would need essential amending from many quarters at the third reading.
A reading it will never now get thanks to the whole shebang being talked out by a raft of MPs who get a nosebleed should they travel too far north of Watford.
Even Michael Gove admitted the need to involve Scotland at the sharp end of any migration legislation. Then again, he's the kind of guy – about to be a Lord – who makes you want to look out the window and check if he says it's raining.
READ MORE: John Swinney urges UK's biggest news agency to reconsider Scottish job cuts
However, he was quoted by Gethins as saying: 'The numbers who would come in the future would be decided by the ­Westminster Parliament and the Holyrood Parliament working together.'
Sure, Michael, sure.
Most of the English MPs throughout the exchanges seemed to be fretting that if we gave out Scottish visas, the recipients would scarper elsewhere asap. Maybe they should have read up on the existing safeguards. ­Always tricky moving the lips before the brain is safely engaged.
For starters, getting a work visa means the taxman knows not just where you bide, but who your employer is. Take up a job not on the paperwork and among the things ­instantly lost is that precious right to work.
While the UK Government obsesses over small boat numbers they ignore ­arrival ­patterns. It's what happens when you spend too much time in the arms of the Daily Mail!
Our history, sadly, is of outward ­migration, whereas both England and Wales have always had more people ­coming in. It's only since the beginning of this ­century we have enjoyed welcoming new citizens, but not in the numbers we need to address the fact that every year more ­people die than are born.
And not in the age group which produces more Scots. As our own government noted: 'Migration is only one strand in the ­approach to addressing Scotland's ­demographic challenge, but it is a ­crucial one. Scotland's history of ­out-migration and population decline has left a ­structural legacy.
(Image: PA)
'Communities, especially rural ­communities, did not just lose those individuals who left Scotland but also the potential future generations of their children and grandchildren. This legacy means that Scotland has long been more reliant on migration than many other ­areas of the United Kingdom.'
As our Tourism Alliance notes: ­'Introducing a Scottish specific visa scheme not only would match ­immigration to the demand for certain skills' – as it has done for centuries – 'but also encourage more people coming to live and work in Scotland, particularly in rural and island communities that are experiencing a drain in people of working age and families.'
Try telling any of that to the bean ­counters, however, both in the UK ­Government and the increasingly shrill right-wing media. The unpalatable fact is that our working-age population will fall by almost 15% over the next 50 years whilst the UK as a whole will have a ­modest increase.
Brutally, we need more young families, more working taxpayers, more ­innovating entrepreneurs, and a smaller percentage in 'god's waiting room.' You will not need me to remind you that the latter cohorts are also the most stubborn Unionists.
Plus, historically, migrants to Scotland have contributed way more than they cost the public services. Perhaps you recall the Fresh Talent Initiative where graduate students could live and work in Scotland for a couple of years after getting their d­egree. It ran for three years till 2008 and was such a runaway success that ­Westminster nicked it.
Now the Scottish Government ­proposes a Scottish graduate visa, linked to a ­Scottish tax code to ensure that the ­recipient continues to live and work here. They want to price it at a realistic level too, given that few shiny new graduates walk into very high-paying employment.
Conversely, everything the Tory ­government did from the loopy Rwanda scheme to halting family and spouse visas has impacted in all the wrong ways. Last November the Home Office noted (with pride, mind you) that compared with the same period in 2023 there had been a startling 84% drop in visas issued to health and care workers.
You will probably have clocked that these are two sectors that are ­desperately and usually vainly trying to recruit ­already trained staff and who, certainly in care work, attract dismal wages for ­vital work.
Similarly, it has become much more difficult to hire foreign skilled workers because a) they now might have to leave spouse and family behind and b) at the moment they require an ­unlikely salary level. As a result of all of these ­unnatural barriers, the EU-UK traffic has ground to a halt, with EU residents, ­understandably, feeling something less than valued.
All of these anti-migrant initiatives have impacted the rural economy, particularly in Scotland, on our seasonal industries, and on our higher education sector which is on its financial knees all over the country.
The gap caused by giving our own weans free tuition was offset to an ­extent by a ­lucrative seam of foreign ­students. Since migration has become an all-­purpose dirty word in some political ­circles, other countries like India, Australia and the USA have not been slow to take up the slack.
Another oddity of the migration debate is folks who have never encountered a migrant in their puff, pronouncing that the immigration numbers are way too high. I get that if you're living somewhere bordering the English Channel and are fearful of added pressure on public services, but the same paranoia seems to infect people never likely to be affected.
It is fervently to be hoped that with ­Reform breathing down the back of so many necks, the issue does not become – in the current jargon – 'weaponised' in the run-up to our own election. If we've learned anything in the last few years, it's that Farage and Co are the very last people who should be left in charge of ­migration policy, or allowed to have ­undue ­influence on those who are.
So, bottom line, we are growing the pensioner population but not the working-age one, new Scots liable to have and raise their kids here. We have income barriers which are higher than any of our young graduates are likely to attain from the off.
Furthermore, the Gethins bill, ­strangled at birth, was only trying to follow a path already trodden in other countries like Canada, our new bestie, Australia and several more. They too recognise the need to resist a 'one-size-fits-all solution'.
The UK system, as currently used, is bureaucratic, unwieldy, and too tightly focused on income levels rather than the skills variety. The USA for instance has just introduced a gold card route which lets more millionaires and billionaires avoid the tedious business of actually ­applying for entry to Trumpland.
They have also let loose a goon squad of folk whose job it is to hoover up ­legitimate incomers who may have committed the unpardonable sin of getting the 'wrong' kind of tattoo.
The UK Home Secretary, for now at least, only has plans to outsource some asylum claimants to the Balkans. If you feel a wee shiver travelling up your spine, you are not alone.