Guest blog by Dr David McCollum, Centre for Population Change, University of St Andrews

With less than twelve months to go, the September 2014 referendum on the constitutional future of Scotland is inevitably the focus of considerable public debate. One topic that often occupies the public mood and political agenda, but which has thus far not featured prominently in these discussions, is that of immigration. This is notable given its importance to Scotland in demographic and economic terms; with the Scottish Government identifying migration as a key driver of population and economic growth. Research currently being carried out by academics from the universities of St Andrews, Stirling and Strathclyde seeks to examine these mechanisms and contribute to public and policy debate on the issue.

In a paper presented at the recent Economic Aspects of Constitutional Change conference in Edinburgh, Dr David McCollum and Professors Allan Findlay, David Bell and Robert Wright argued that the character of immigration to Scotland is distinctive, in terms of both the nature of immigration flows and social attitudes to immigration. Although no longer the case, Scotland has traditionally lost more people than it has gained through migration. Related to this, the foreign-born population of Scotland is lower than the UK level generally. However a modest rate of natural increase (births minus deaths) means that Scotland is dependent on migration for demographic stability and growth to a greater extent than the other constituent countries of the UK.

As well as having different experiences of migration, Scotland may be distinctive in terms of the views of the public towards migration. Immigration is a perennially politically sensitive issue and in most advanced countries a greater share of the population opposes than supports substantial inflows of international migrants. Analysis of the British and Scottish Social Attitudes surveys points towards some potential hostility towards immigration in Scotland. However the public in Scotland does appear to hold less hostile views towards migration than is the case in any other part of Britain, aside from London. This is significant given the widely held assumption that the Scottish government would seek to enact a more liberal immigration policy in the event of constitutional change. Scotland currently has a Population Target to match average EU-15 population growth over the period 2007-2017 and migration is the primary means through which this can be achieved. However immigration legislation is an issue that remains ‘reserved’ to Westminster so the Scottish government has little practical influence over inflows of migrants in policy terms. The stance of the Scottish government towards immigration differs considerably from that of the UK government, which has a much publicised pledge to ‘cap’ net migration at 100,000 per annum by the time of the next general election in 2015.

So what might Scotland’s future immigration policies look like? Sub-national migration policies, such as is the case in Quebec-Canada, are one means through which Scotland could seek to develop policy levers over immigration, whatever the outcome of next year’s referendum. A recent contribution by Professor Robert Wright has set out how such measures might function in practice.

Even in the event of constitutional change there are grounds for believing that immigration policy in an independent Scotland would not be independent of powerful external economic and political forces. Probable EU membership means that Scotland would have little control over immigration from other parts of Europe and may even face pressure to become part of the Schengen Area, meaning there would effectively be no border or immigration controls between Scotland and the other 26 signatories of this agreement. Such a move would be strongly resisted by the UK government, who would perceive easy entry into Scotland as immigration to England ‘by the back door’. Additionally, an independent Scotland would most likely wish to remain part of the longstanding Common Travel Area with the UK and Ireland. This would make it difficult in political and practical terms for Scotland to enact an immigration policy that is significantly different to that of the UK. Thus in short, Scotland needs and welcomes migrants to a greater extent than the UK and Scotland would not necessarily need independence in order to pursue a more independent immigration policy. However, even with independence Scotland’s immigration policy would not be independent of immigration policies at the EU and UK levels.

For further information about our research on immigration and constitutional change in Scotland please;

See: http://www.cpc.ac.uk/latest_news/?action=story&id=255

Or

Contact Dr David McCollum, Centre for Population Change, University of St Andrews: David.McCollum@st-andrews.ac.uk