Meeting of the Parliament 27 September 2022
Three weeks ago, the Finance and Public Administration Committee received an update from the Scottish Fiscal Commission. Some will remember, perhaps rather too fondly, that I had lost my voice, so the session was diligently chaired by the deputy convener, Daniel Johnson. We welcomed the new chair of the SFC, Professor Graeme Roy, and were updated on trends in Scotland’s population and the effects on the economy and income tax. We heard that, on current trends, nearly 900,000 fewer people will live in Scotland by 2072.
Crucially, the number of 16 to 64-year-olds is declining rapidly, leaving us with fewer people of working age. Scotland has long had demographic challenges, from the Highland clearances to losing 2 million people to out-migration in the second half of the 20th century—many to other parts of the United Kingdom. Indeed, we had the lowest rate of population growth of any country on earth in the 20th century—the union dividend in action, no doubt. I gently point out to Douglas Lumsden that that was long before the existence of the Parliament, let alone tax-raising powers being part of our remit.
We can embrace the likelihood that most of us have longer and higher-quality lives ahead of us than previous generations did, but not having the ability to make up retirement numbers in the workforce will lead to an economic decline and a decline in services. We must incentivise working for longer by making it as easy as possible for older people to do so, if that is what they wish to do. An example of that is the Scottish Government’s retire and return scheme, which streamlines the process to let experienced national health service staff take up a part-time post while drawing their pension. That is an innovative way to retain staff and prevent a reduction in high-quality service provision across Scotland.