Migration
Attracting talent to Scotland
Key points:
- Push the UK Government to recognise the action that is needed to protect Scotland’s prosperity and wellbeing with a differentiated migration policy tailored to Scotland’s needs
- Bring forward an Electoral Franchise Bill
To attract talent to Scotland and grow our population (including as part of the repopulation of our rural areas) we need a migration policy which reflects Scotland’s distinct needs.
We will continue to push the UK Government to recognise the action that is needed to protect Scotland’s prosperity and wellbeing. Scottish Ministers should have the powers to tailor migration policy, within a UK framework to meet Scotland’s distinct needs.
We have established a Ministerial Population Task Force which will across Ministerial portfolios and with partner organisations to bring together all of the actions to address Scotland’s population challenge. The Task Force will intensify good work where it is happening and identify more opportunities for change.
We will work to attract people and families from the rest of the UK to relocate here and work with universities,colleges and local authorities to encourage people to stay in Scotland and to move within Scotland to address regional skills gaps. A multi-agency Talent Attraction and Retention Working Group has been established to drive this work forward. The collaboration between the Scottish Government, the enterprise agencies, SDS, CoSLA and Brand Scotland will deliver projects and interventions that will give Scotland a competitive edge in terms of attracting, recruiting and retaining talent.
We will continue to deliver our Stay in Scotland campaign to provide practical information, and advice to support EU citizens and their family members to apply to the EU settlement Scheme.
In addition, we have brought forward the Scottish Elections (Franchise and Representation) Bill which if passed will give fair access to voting rights for all those who have a legal right to live in Scotland.