Andrew Picken
BBC Scotland News

Scotland's population is set to fall due to an expected drop in international migration, new data shows.

The National Records of Scotland (NRS) previously projected, external the population would steadily increase over the next 25 years to reach 5.8m by 2047.

But its latest projection, external, external suggests the population will peak at 5.56m in 2033, before dropping to 5.47m in 2049.

The NRS said the change is "mainly driven by migration falling from unusually high levels".

Read more here.

We've been unable to speak to anyone from Reform UK Scotland on the campaign trail today, however they hold strong views on immigration.

In their manifesto Reform, say they would:

• Require immigrants who enter Scotland illegally and break the law to leave, but welcome immigrants who adopt Scottish values such as being generous, kind, amusing, hard-working, law-abiding and fair-minded
• Restore a housing rule that means local authorities can refer homeless applicants to other council areas if they are not deemed to have a connection to the area
• Scrap Glasgow's status as Scotland's main dispersal city for successful asylum seekers

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

Back to the subject of migration, and Scottish Conservative candidate Dr Sandesh Gulhane says that “illegal immigration” has to be stopped but that Scotland needs “to see skilled migrants” and that they could be attracted if taxes were cut.

Gulhane insists that MSPs at Holyrood do not need more power over migration, which is reserved to Westminster.

Ross Greer was speaking as the Scottish Greens announced plans for what it calls a ScotCard, to cut travel costs and make journeys easier for people.

The party says travel costs would be slashed with bus and rail trips made easier by letting people have a single ScotCard pass they can use to join up journeys with a capped fare

Free bus travel for under-22s was just the start and the Scottish Greens who are now pledging to extend that immediately to all under-30s.

They would also introduce a £2 cap on all bus fares as a stepping stone to making buses free for everyone in Scotland.

Back to the issue of immigration and the Scottish Greens are "proud that Scotland is a welcoming country," according to party co-leader Ross Greer.

He says: "The economic reality is Scotland needs more immigration as we don't have a big enough working-age population."

Campaigning in Glasgow, Greer argues that if we want to keep our health service, care system and hospitality industry going we need immigration.

"It's outrageous that many of the people that come to claim asylum here are banned from working by the UK government."

With just nine days to go before the Scottish Parliament election on 7 May, opinion polls suggest the SNP will remain by far the largest party despite being much less popular than at the last election in 2021.

Meanwhile, Reform and Labour appear to be in a close battle for second place.

However, there is still enough uncertainty in the polls to suggest the final days of the campaign could prove vital in determining the outcome.

Read more from polling expert Sir John Curtice here.

The Scottish Greens focused on travel today, firstly proposing a "bus bond" scheme to end "failed" privatisation, with plans to take more buses under public control.

One way they will do this is by giving people the chance to invest in local services through the introduction of Scottish Bus Bonds.

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay says: “Bus privatisation has failed communities all across Scotland.

"It has meant higher fares, fewer routes and a broken and fragmented system where companies can cherry-pick profitable services while leaving passengers and councils to pick up the pieces.

"The Scottish Greens will finally end the failed Thatcherite experiment for good."

The party has also committed to free bus travel for all, building on the success of free travel for everyone under 22, which was previously secured by the Scottish Greens.

Where do the main parties stand on immigration?published at 14:21 BST

14:21 BST

Phil Sim, Scotland political correspondent, Aimee Stanton and Andrew Picken

A simple summary of where the main parties stand on immigration, and other key campaign issues, has been produced by BBC Scotland.

The guide is based on the promises that parties have made during the campaign.

• The SNP want the UK government to deliver a Scottish visa scheme and devolve migration policy to a tailored system that addresses Scotland's workforce needs.
• The Scottish Greens also want the UK government to devolve immigration to the Scottish Parliament, and they want to fund councils and registered social landlords to supply asylum housing to end the routine use of hotels and barracks.
• The Scottish Conservatives say that no-one who has entered the UK illegally should be allowed to claim asylum, and they plan to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and close all asylum hotels.
• Scottish Labour want to see a managed and controlled migration system which ensures Scotland gets the skills and talent it needs, and keeps borders secure across the UK.
• The Scottish Liberal Democrats plan to declare the backlog of asylum claims a national emergency, and employ 2,000 more caseworkers to help clear the backlog and close asylum hotels.
• Reform UK want to see the removal of immigrants who enter Scotland illegally and break the law, and to scrap Glasgow's status as Scotland's main dispersal city for successful asylum seekers.

Read more here.

While campaigning in Glasgow, Anas Sarwar says the balance has to be right when it comes to immigration.

"Immigration has been good for this country," the Scottish Labour leader adds.

He says the country has a broken immigration system that needs to be fixed.

"People have a frustration with levels of illegal immigration which we have to drag down," he says.

"But this country does need skilled migration, which I support."

He says its right to have a UK Home Office and UK Border Agency, but there needs to be an immigration system that works for every part of the country.

Jenni Davidson
BBC Scotland senior politics reporter

On immigration, SNP leader John Swinney says the focus has to be on practical measures to make sure Scotland is able to benefit from migration, because that will boost the size of the workforce and the economy.

He adds that Scotland has shortages across a variety of sectors such as construction, hospitality, social care and healthcare.

Swinney says the country had benefited from the free movement of people coming into Scotland while the UK was a member of the EU, so there should be an approach to immigration that welcomes people into the workforce.

Do refugees get 'priority' for housing?published at 13:32 BST

13:32 BST

BBC Scotland: Phil Sim, Aimee Stanton and Andrew Picken

BBC Verify has been examining claims made by political leaders about the impact of asylum and migration on housing.

During BBC Scotland's election debate, Reform UK's Scottish leader Malcolm Offord claimed that "people arriving immediately to Glasgow, the asylum city of the UK, are given priority, they are jumping the queue" for services like housing.

The Scottish Conservatives have also said that thousands of asylum seekers being attracted to Glasgow means "there is less accommodation available for local people".

Glasgow is facing one of the most acute housing challenges in Scotland with more than 6,000 live applications, external awaiting permanent housing and more than 4,200 households in temporary accommodation, with no time limit on waiting lists.

Homeless people seeking temporary accommodation can be prioritised over those who are not homeless, but are waiting for permanent accommodation.

Scottish councils have a duty to house everyone who is "unintentionally homeless", this includes refugees.

Changes agreed by MSPs back in 2003, external gradually stripped out the "hurdles over which applicants had to jump" to get support, in a bid to strengthen the rights of homeless people and compel local authorities to help them.

So if a flat becomes available, the council may need to use it as a temporary home for a homeless family, who may be refugees.

This is both because it legally has to, and because this will likely be far cheaper than putting them in a hotel or bed and breakfast.

So another family which has been waiting months or years for permanent accommodation may see homeless people moving into that flat and feel they have been overtaken.

If you're just joining us we've been asking the parties on the campaign trail to react to the government missing their target on the longest NHS waiting times.

• There were almost 34,000 waits over 18 months, with half a million people on a waiting list
• SNP leader John Swinney says the latest data shows that for 10 months in a row there has been a reduction in long waits for out-patients and in-patients
• Scottish Tory health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane describes the figures as "a damning indictment of the SNP's two decades of failure in charge of our NHS"
• Investing £400m in social care to free up hospital beds is Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton's solution for the stubborn waiting times
• Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar says today's NHS waiting time figures show why Scotland "desperately needs change" at next week's election
• The co-leader of the Scottish Greens, Ross Greer, was in Glasgow and said there needs to be reform of the NHS to bring down waiting lists
• We've not been able to speak to anyone from Reform UK Scotland on the campaign trail, but the party has said it would tackle waiting times by fixing delayed discharges and training more doctors and nurses

You can compare party policies with our issues grid.

Jenni Davidson
BBC Scotland senior politics reporter

Image source, PA

Let's get back to the SNP on the campaign trail and John Swinney has been packing groceries and being shown how to fold bedding when the party’s campaign battle bus made a stop at a charity in Pilton, in Edinburgh, this morning.

On a visit to Fresh Start, a charity that runs a community pantry and provides the basics for people moving on from homelessness, the SNP leader talked about his party’s plans to help with food costs.

Swinney said he wanted to legislate for an affordable price cap on a range of items in the supermarket so everyone would have access to a nutritious shop.

He said the other parties wanted to stop him doing that, and that was why it was important for the SNP to get a majority so they couldn’t stand in the way of the SNP doing “good things” such as reducing people’s food bills.

Image source, PA Media

The Scottish Labour leader says today's NHS waiting time figures show why Scotland "desperately needs change" at next week week's election and it is "completely unacceptable that we have people waiting two years for treatment".

Anas Sarwar says he will return the NHS to its founding principles - free and available at the point of need.

He pledges to cut waiting lists, to end the 8am rush for a GP, as well as bringing back the family doctor and embracing technology.

"We'll make sure the money follows the patient," he adds.

"I won't have anyone waiting far too long for treatment."

Cole-Hamilton's 10-year plan to tackle dentistry 'crisis'published at 12:15 BST

12:15 BST

Steven Godden
BBC Scotland

Today’s campaign message from the Scottish Liberal Democrats is “say ahhh” as Alex Cole-Hamilton visits a dental surgery in Dunfermline.

The party leader says the profession is in crisis with people finding it harder and harder to register with an NHS dentist.

If elected, he says the Lib Dems would produce a 10-year rolling workforce plan and make it easier for qualified dentists from overseas to practice in Scotland.

On NHS waiting times, Cole-Hamilton says his party has identified £400m that it would invest in social care to free up hospital beds.

He says immigration should be approached on a UK four-nation basis and insists Scotland needs managed immigration to fill the jobs in social care that would bring down waiting lists.

Cole-Hamilton says asylum seekers should be allowed to work while their claims are considered and pledges to recruit 2,000 case workers to deal with the backlog of asylum claims.

David Wallace Lockhart
Political correspondent

The Scottish Conservatives are campaigning outside a private hospital in Glasgow today. They want to highlight plans to "buy up" beds in facilities like this in order to reduce NHS waiting lists.

However, hospital management don’t seem too happy that party activists have turned up to wave their placards outside.

The party’s health spokesperson, Dr Sandesh Gulhane, told me he wants to see “inflation-busting uplifts” for the health service in Scotland.

I put to him that sounds like a difficult promise to make when his party is also promising tax cuts.

But he insists costs can be recouped elsewhere. The party has a smaller welfare budget in mind.

Missing targets is piling the pressure on both the NHS and patientspublished at 11:45 BST

11:45 BST

Claire McAllister
BBC Scotland health producer

Over £135m of additional funding was spent tackling the longest NHS waiting times over the last year paying for extra staff and clinics.

While Public Health Scotland figures show there has been significant reductions in the longest waits, there are still almost 34,000 waits over a year.

Before the pandemic there were a few thousand waits this long but by the summer of 2024 this had topped 100,000.

It put extreme pressure on the NHS, while the health of patients also gets worse.

All of this is against a backdrop where there are legal requirements for all patients to be seen within 12 weeks to be treated, for things like hip operations. This is routinely missed.

Scottish Labour is accusing the SNP of “broken promises and spin” as it is confirmed that target times for the longest NHS waits are being missed.

The party's deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, says "Thousands of Scots are languishing on NHS waiting lists for years at a time but John Swinney and the SNP are arrogant enough to say their plan is working.

"The SNP is complacent, out of touch and cannot be trusted with our NHS, but this is not as good as it gets.

"A Scottish Labour government will turn the page on SNP failure and deliver a better future for our NHS – fixing the waiting times emergency, ending the 8am rush for a GP and putting patients and frontline staff first.”

Image source, PA Media

John Swinney has given his reaction to target times for the longest waits for NHS treatment not being met, with almost 34,000 waits over a year long.

The SNP leader says the latest data shows that for 10 months in a row there has been a reduction in long waits for out-patients and in-patients.

"People are waiting less time for treatment, we've got more operations being undertaken, we had a record number of hip and knee operations last year and the Scottish government is focused on making sure we get those waiting times down," he adds.

Swinney says the investment his government has made in the budget will help it do just that.

"We've made overwhelming progress on reducing long waits."

The SNP leader would not commit to a new deadline for eradicating waits of over a year for NHS treatment after missing a commitment to do this by the end of March 2026, but he says they are making “very sustained progress” and he didn’t think it would take much longer to achieve that.

Lisa Summers
BBC Scotland health correspondent

More from our health correspondent on those latest NHS waiting times figures.

A Scottish government target to end the longest waits for NHS treatment has not been met – with almost 34,000 waits over a year long.

Figures by Public Health Scotland, external also show over half a million people are on a waiting list.

That's around one in 10 of the population.

The government said by March this year, no-one would wait over a year for a non-urgent appointment on the NHS.

There has been a significant drop in waits of over 52 weeks since last summer, but at the end of last month, almost 18,000 waits for inpatient care were over 52 weeks and 16,000 for outpatient appointments.

During this election campaign, all the political parties have set out plans to reduce waiting times.

However, the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh accuses politicians of not being honest with the public with proposals that are not fully costed.