Labour May Consider Scottish Visa For Skilled Workers

A separate visa for Scotland would be a deviation from U.K. immigration policy

A Scottish leader of Britain’s victorious Labour Party is open to exploring a separate Scottish visa for skilled workers to address staff shortages in the territory, which would be a deviation from immigration policy in the United Kingdom.

Dame Jackie Baillie, the Labour Party’s Scottish deputy leader, said she is open to talks with Scotland ministers on how to attract foreign workers to tackle staff shortages, The Times reported July 1. Her statement comes even as Labour Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has talked tough on immigration, insisting the party will prioritise training British people for jobs and reform the points-based system that allows companies to hire foreign workers to bridge skills shortages at home.

Speaking to The Herald on Sunday newspaper, Baillie suggested that such model could allow Scottish immigration policy to deviate from the rest of the U.K.

“I know there are skill shortages in different parts of the U.K., including in Scotland — for instance in the care sector,” she was quoted as saying. “So how do we make sure to match our immigration system to skills is something that is very firmly on the agenda at a U.K. level and Scotland would benefit from that.”

Asked if she would consider a Scottish visa, she said: “There would be discussions to have at that time. I would expect governments to work together, to talk to each other, to respond to each other’s needs.

"Growing home-grown talent is really important. At the moment there are no plans for one (a Scottish visa), but I think if you have governments taking common-sense approaches" that the Labour government would do, then the dialogue will continue, according to The Times.

Her remarks come 20 years after the last Labour first minister, Jack McConnell, pioneered a slightly divergent immigration policy in Scotland, according to The Times. His Fresh Talent scheme, agreed with Westminster, allowed students who graduated from Scottish universities to secure a work visa. It ran from 2004 to 2008 and was eventually killed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition at Westminster, The Times said.

Scottish nationalists have sought some version of the scheme ever since it was torpedoed. Nicola Sturgeon, when first minister, lobbied for a visa pilot scheme in 2020 as the care, farming and hospitality sectors struggled to find staff.

John Swinney, the first minister, speaking on BBC Scotland’s Sunday Show, welcomed Baillie’s remarks but said he was a doubtful it would come to pass given Labour’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Britain’s Labour Party, which won the July 4 general elections in a landslide, will "properly" control and manage immigration to reduce the number of people coming to live in the United Kingdom from near record levels, its election manifesto says. The party will reform the points-based immigration system so that it is fair and properly managed, with appropriate restrictions on visas, and by linking immigration and skills policy, according to the manifesto.

Net migration, the number of people immigrating to the U.K. minus those emigrating, climbed to a record 764,000 in 2022, about three times the annual average before the pandemic. Net migration fell 10 percent in 2023 to 685,000, the Office of National Statistics has said, but was still well above pre-pandemic levels.