How open is an open door policy

● With a falling birth rate, Scotland needs migration but there are problems to overcome

Immigration has been a deeply divisive issue in England for years. But in Scotland there is a marked difference. Scots as a whole tend not to see immigration – a prominent issue in the Brexit referendum campaign – as a cause for division and acrimony. Indeed, because of Scotland’s particular demographic circumstances, immigration is far more widely viewed as a necessity.

There are problems – regulatory and economic – in running an “open door” immigration policy. But Scotland’s main political parties are agreed on the need to encourage more migration. Indeed, as both the SNP administration and a recent paper from the Reform Scotland have argued, there is a compelling case for Scotland to be exempted from the immigrant visa cap that the Westminster government is seeking to apply across the UK as a whole.

So should Scotland have an open door? Many believe so. But there are both domestic considerations and practical constraints.

The case for “open door” is powerful. Without immigration, Scotland’s population would be falling and our ability to staff key service sector areas – not only our important farming, tourism and visitor sectors but key public services such as the NHS – would be in jeopardy.

Scotland’s population in 2016 hit 5.4 million and now stands at the highest level ever recorded. But that increase is due to migration. Our birth rate has been lagging and continues to fall. Scotland’s General Fertility Rate (GFR) – the number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 – stood at 53.2 in 2015. This compares with 61.7 per cent for the UK as a whole and is the lowest of any other UK country or region.

Since then the figure has got worse. Scotland’s GFR has fallen to 52.6, while the UK rate has held up at 61.7. Over the next 25 years the number of births minus the number of deaths in Scotland is projected to be negative. All increases in population will be due to migration.

In 2017, the number of non- British nationals living in Scotland rose 12 per cent to 378,000, according to the National Records of Scotland. The number of EU nationals increased by 26,000 to 235,000, with the number of non-eu nationals increasing by 14,000 to 142,000. Overall, 7 per cent of the resident population of Scotland have non-british nationality.

This viewed in isolation may not seem much of a problem. But at the same time our population has been ageing with the result that a proportionately smaller working age population faces increasing demands in funding healthcare and welfare services for a rising population of over 65s.

The numbers of those aged 65 to 74 are forecast to rise by There are both domestic considerations and practical constraints to an open door policy 17 per cent over the next 25 years and the numbers aged 75 plus to rise by 79 per cent.

The Scottish Fiscal Commission has sounded the alarm bells. “The size of the population aged 16 to 64, which makes up most of the working age population”, it noted, “is very important for the economy and public finances. These individuals are more likely to be working and will be generating the highest tax receipts, for example, in income tax”.

And the point was forcefully underlined by the recent Reform Scotland analysis: “Scotland needs migration. We need more working-age people to contribute towards public finances in order to be able to afford to meet the costs of our public services. We need to attract people to come and live and work in Scotland.

“Scotland’s main political parties are agreed on the need to encourage more migration”