Scotland’s Population – Meeting the Needs of our Communities, Economy and Public Services (Amendment 3)
S6M-06063.3: As an amendment to motion S6M-06063 in the name of Angus Robertson (Scotland’s Population – Meeting the Needs of our Communities, Economy and Public Services), leave out from first "notes" to end and insert "celebrates the social, economic and cultural contribution made to Scotland by those who have chosen to live here; acknowledges the Scottish Government’s 2021 report, A Scotland for the future: The opportunities and challenges of Scotland's changing population, which states that Scotland faces “very significant demographic challenges” and that the reasons for this are multi-faceted; further acknowledges recent figures from the National Records of Scotland that show that Scotland has the lowest life expectancy in the UK; recognises that rural areas in particular face a significant depopulation crisis; supports an immigration system that assists parts of Scotland that need migration most, in particular, remote and island communities, and believes that a new approach is required to reverse rural depopulation, as well as meet the wider population challenges facing Scotland as a whole."

Original motion(S6M-06063):
That the Parliament notes that the Parliament has previously endorsed a motion calling for the development of a differentiated, more flexible migration policy tailored to meet Scotland’s specific needs; celebrates the social, economic and cultural contribution made to Scotland by those who have chosen to live here; notes that the UK Government’s own immigration advisers concluded in 2019 that the UK migration system is not very effective in dealing with the particular problems that remote communities experience and recommended the establishment of a pilot scheme to support migration to rural areas, and that this recommendation was accepted by the then Home Secretary in a statement to the House of Commons in July 2019; further notes the distinct demographic challenges that Scotland faces, and that all of Scotland’s population growth is projected to come from migration; notes that the independent Expert Advisory Group on Migration and Population concluded in its 2019 report that the demographic challenges for rural areas would be exacerbated by the ending of freedom of movement; further notes that the Fresh Talent scheme introduced in 2005 was a differentiated migration approach for Scotland, and calls on the UK Government to accept the Rural Visa Pilot proposal, which has been jointly developed by the Scottish Government, rural and island local authorities and rural employers, and to engage constructively to support the delivery of Rural Visa Pilots that meet the needs of rural communities.