Why arch-Brexiteers have good reason to fear devolving control of immigration to Scotland

The rise of the SNP since the creation of the Scottish Parliament has taught unionists a valuable lesson: giving Scotland some of the trappings of an independent country has, far from placating nationalist sentiment, actually encouraged it.

So while it might be practically useful to devolve control of immigration to Scotland – as has been done in parts of Australia, for example – the independence question means it is unlikely to happen anytime soon. And, with Brexiteer nationalism still a powerful force in the UK, neither Labour nor the Conservatives are likely to surrender the power to ‘control our borders’.

However, just imagine Labour did decide to do so and that a Conservative-Reform alliance won the next election on a platform of reducing immigration to “net zero”, as Nigel Farage likes to say. This would then create a vast, real-life experiment on the economic costs and benefits of allowing people from overseas to live, work and study in the UK.

Big numbers

The latest net migration estimates of 728,000 for the year to June 2024, and 906,000 for the previous year must have been astonishing for Brexit supporters who thought the whole point of leaving the European Union was to reduce immigration. Such large numbers clearly have significant effects, from the rising demand for housing to the increased provision of labour for employers struggling to fill vacant jobs.

However, the effects of migrants on public finances very much depend on the individual. Oxford University’s Migration Observatory cites a 2018 study which found that a single 20-year-old with no children “only needed to earn just over £10,000 per year to ‘break even’ from a fiscal perspective, while a couple with two children... would not become net fiscal contributors until they earned around £45,000”. Similar calculations can be made for UK citizens and, while having children comes with a cost, it’s an investment that most people consider worthwhile.

Migrants, like these flower pickers from Romania, have been propping up the UK's gross domestic product for years (Picture: Oli Scarff) | AFP via Getty Images

The observatory also notes Office for Budget Responsibility research which found that a migrant “who moved to the UK at age 25 and earned the UK average earnings... until retirement would contribute £341,000 to public finances if they lived until age 80”.

As a footnote to the figures, it’s worth pointing out that they include UK nationals – 58,000 Brits returned to this country in the year to June, while 79,000 left. So, if life in the UK becomes a bit more popular, a strict net-zero immigration policy could potentially mean those who linger abroad for too long would find themselves barred from returning until someone else leaves in a nightclub-style ‘one in, one out’ policy (although presumably an exception would be made).

Recipe for economic disaster

If Scotland was included in a future net-zero immigration policy, its population would start to fall because births are increasingly being outnumbered by deaths as the average age increases. In the year to mid-2023, Scotland’s population rose by 43,100, but only because net international migration was 47,700.

A population that is declining and ageing is a recipe for economic disaster for the simple reason that there are fewer people of working age to support growing numbers of retirees. Fewer workers equals a smaller economy – a reasonably simple concept. The Office for Budget Responsibility recently highlighted this in a study looking at the potential economic implications of different levels of migration.

In a high net-migration scenario of 515,000 a year, the UK’s gross domestic product rose by about 1.5 per cent by 2028-29; if it was 115,000 a year, this would reduce GDP by about the same amount. GDP per person – essentially how well-off we are as individuals – did remain about the same, but would you rather exert an upward or a downward pressure on the economy?

Migrants vital to NHS and social care

Of course, migrants are not just numbers on the national balance sheet. What they do when they are here really does matter. In the year to March, 39 per cent of skilled worker visas went to care workers, ten per cent to nurses and five per cent to doctors.

Cutting off this supply of labour would exacerbate the current crisis in the NHS and social care. Care homes would be struggling to fill vacancies at the same time as demand for their services, as a result of that ageing population, was increasing.

All this is pretty grim and helps make a decent case for a Scottish visa, particularly in event of a net-zero immigration policy in the UK. However, a Faragist government would be fools to allow that real-world test of immigration policies to take place.

Scotland’s health service, care sector, hospitality industry, farmers and others would all benefit from the arrival of people of working age with sufficient ‘get up and go’ to forge a new life in a different country. Meanwhile, the rest of the UK would pay an increasingly obvious price of anti-immigrant ideology – a faltering economy, an NHS in increasing decline, and elderly people struggling to get the care they need.

Political charlatans

I absolutely agree that net migration of 906,000 in a year is too high to be sustained for long, but a large number of the people coming are students who will return home after finishing their course. Many people who arrive on working visas also only stay for a few years, so high immigration tends to be followed by high emigration. This is part of the reason why projections for net migration suggest it will fall to about 315,000 a year.

Failing to make a positive case for immigration while allowing numbers to rise so high is a gift to the hard and far-right, who have long used hostility towards foreigners as a tool to win power across the world.

That’s why a party which won power on an anti-immigration platform would never risk a real-world test of its benefits – it would expose their empty nationalist rhetoric for what it is, while teaching voters a hard lesson about political charlatans.