The White Paper promises a change in the direction of travel in migration policy. In recent years the UK has enacted a number of measures restricting various migration flows, and the present government aims to reduce net migration—the difference between immigration and emigration—below 100,000 annually. The White Paper outlines a vision for a set of migration policies that encourage skilled migrants to come to and remain in Scotland, in order to meet different demographic and economic objectives, which it explicitly contrasts with the present “Westminster approach.”

The White Paper outlines several means toward these ends. An independent Scotland would implement a Points-Based System (PBS), in which prospective immigrants receive points for meeting a variety of conditions, and can get a visa if they have enough points. Of course, the UK currently operates a Points-Based System as well, but the outcome of a system depends on how points are allocated. A points-based system can take a “human capital” approach, encouraging highly-skilled migration by giving points for advanced degrees, language abilities, needed skills, and the like, without requiring the highly-skilled migrant to have a job offer in advance. Or it can be exclusively employer-driven, by linking immigration visas to job offers in hand (as well as requiring certain levels of skills, qualifications, or income). The current UK system has curtailed the human capital element of its PBS; the White Paper suggests that an independent Scotland would reverse this trend in policy.

One specific step proposed is the reinstitution of the Post-Study Work visa, which would allow non-EU nationals to stay on in Scotland after attaining a graduate or postgraduate degree in order to seek work. This was scrapped by the current UK government as part of its drive to reduce overall net migration, in this case by making it more difficult for non-EU nationals to stay on in the UK after a course of study.

The White Paper also proposes using its PBS to encourage migration toward more “remote” areas of Scotland that may need an enlarged workforce or particular sets of skills that are in short supply. Although it is not entirely clear how this will work in Scotland, there is precedent for including such incentives in migration policy, particularly in Canada. (See the Migration Observatory policy primer Sub-National Immigration Policy: Can it Work in the UK?)

Encouraging high-skilled migration is an important goal in the migration section of the White Paper, but not the only one. The paper also proposes a Scottish Asylum Agency, emphasising the distinction between asylum and immigration, and promising “robust, fair, socially responsible” decision-making on asylum cases. And the paper addresses issues of passport controls at borders. Scotland would seek to remain part of the existing Common Travel Area with UK and Ireland, so that passports would not be needed to travel between England and Scotland.  It would not seek to enter the passport-free Schengen zone that many EU countries share.