Significant questions remain unanswered about how Scottish immigration policy will work after the independence referendum - irrespective of the outcome of the vote, the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford have said.
The migration profiles of Scotland and the rest of the UK are very different. England in particular has a much faster growing population, with a considerably larger proportion of migrants than Scotland. Also, the study delineates how Scotland’s population may not grow without immigration – unlike the rest of the UK.
These differences have led to calls for a Scotland-specific immigration policy, to use high-skilled migration to help encourage population growth. But this could bring challenging trade-offs.
In particular, if immigration policies that are very different to those in the rest of the UK are introduced in Scotland – such as joining the EU’s Schengen free travel area or introducing policies to encourage greater non-EU immigration – there may be calls from the rest of the UK for Anglo-Scottish passport controls.
Read more at University of Oxford