Scotland faces an existential crisis that politicians are doing almost nothing about

A pledge which caught my eye from the recent Irish general election was this: that every newborn would receive around 1,000 euros in a savings account. The promise from Fine Gael (who finished second) may have been an electioneering gimmick ahead of a tight race. But it’s exactly the kind of policy our governments should be pursuing.

Not as a touchy-feely pitch to nice young families, but as a calculated tool to tackle what is the Western world’s most under-rated crisis – a plunging birth rate. In Scotland, this is as acute as anywhere.

Last year’s number of births fell to their lowest ever, while another record was achieved shortly after: we now have the highest-ever population of 90-year-olds. Great news for them, their loved ones, and sales of rich tea biscuits, but we’re going to have a major problem if the number of pensioners rises sharply, and the people born to replace them in the decades following plummets.

It will make the state pension utterly unaffordable, and a reduced tax base spells grim news for the economy and public services. This is a headache for the entire developed world.

The falling number of babies and the growing number of elderly people will cause increasingly serious economic problems (Picture: Christopher Furlong) | Getty Images

Decimo once a common Italian name

In Japan, the government is more concerned about its falling fertility rate than the threat of missiles being fired over the sea from North Korea. Its prime minister recently described this as “the biggest crisis Japan faces” and declared he would announce a package of measures to deal with it.

In Italy, it is not uncommon to encounter an old chap sipping coffee and playing dominoes called Decimo – on account that he was the tenth child born to a culture immersed in “famiglia”. Not for long – now Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the whole EU. Last month, the bloc itself released statistics showing the number of newborns had dropped to its lowest ever.

The story seems to be the same the Developed World over. Young people point to their economic situation and concerns over childcare as their reasons for not expanding a family. For others, they just don’t fancy it, and women understandably don’t want to sacrifice cumulative years of their life being pregnant, trying to get pregnant, or raising yet another very young child.

Israel is the only OECD country replacing people at a greater rate than they are dying. One factor cited by experts for this is cold, hard cash – there are lucrative tax breaks for families with children, as well as comparatively generous maternity pay arrangements.

Poorer countries have more children

A declining birth rate does appear to be a First World problem. Just over Israel’s border, despite being pounded by bombs and most of the territory being reduced to rubble, Gazans were sustaining a birth rate higher than any European country in 2024, and 38th in the world, according to a league table produced by American analysts.

A glance at those standings – with Niger, Benin, Angola and Mali occupying the Champions League places – would suggest the poorer the country, the more likely women are to have multiple children. So money isn’t the obstacle for them, but it is for Westerners.

Back at home, it begs the question: what are both the UK and Scottish Governments doing about all this? It is literally an existential crisis, but such is the long-term nature of solving it, that no political party wants to spend serious money on something that’s never going to pay off within one, or even two, electoral cycles.

SNP’s baby box a good idea

To its credit, the SNP did come up with the “baby box” – a package for every newborn containing a range of implements and fads which new parents may appreciate. It costs the taxpayer about £9 million a year, and has been criticised as another unnecessary giveaway, providing many parents with things they could already well afford themselves.

I’m in a Conservative minority when it comes to supporting it, at least for a family’s first-born. The point isn’t so much the contents, which extend to semi-reliable equipment and naff garments. But when it arrives a few weeks before birth, it helps get you in the zone.

It forces you to think about why you might need a bath thermometer, or a teething soother, or scratch mittens. As a parent, it also makes you feel the government is on your side as you enter this next, pivotal stage of your own life.

Then there is that money element. Progress must be made on maternity pay, encouraging more men and their employers to take longer paternity breaks, and finally sort out the Scotland-wide childcare provision mess.

Two-child benefit cap is crazy

The British two-child cap – where families cease to be eligible for certain benefits beyond kid number two – also needs to go. The Tories introduced it, Labour have retained it, and the SNP spent years sitting on their hands enjoying the fallout even though they had the power to remove it for Scots.

The fact they have now pledged to do so from 2026 – handily just before the next Holyrood election – proves this option existed but wasn’t utilised until it was considered politically useful. Whoever is responsible, it is a crazy policy for a country which desperately needs to increase its birth rate.

And that brings me back to the newborn savings account. Such a move in Scotland, to invest £1,000 in a secure savings account, would cost around £45 million per year.

Some safeguards would need to be put in place, not least to prevent feckless parents or carers from plundering the cash early, but it is a completely affordable commitment for the Scottish or UK Government.

People swithering about starting or extending a family have myriad factors to consider. Knowing the state is supporting both them and the bump, financially and emotionally, would help trigger the kind of cultural change we blatantly need.

Adam Morris is a former head of media for the Scottish Conservatives