KATE FORBES: Back organisations bucking the trend to stem depopulation in the Highlands
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The Federation of Small Businesses published a league table of the most entrepreneurial towns in Scotland a few years ago. Newtonmore was one of two Highland towns topping the list.
The research analysed towns across Scotland, and concluded that towns in the Highlands and Islands were often more likely to be entrepreneurial, with high levels of self-employment.
I would observe firstly that the region’s communities have long depended on themselves to make a living and the second is that we are perfectly capable of achieving everything that can be achieved in more urban areas – if given the opportunity.
Our landscape bears testimony to the active, persistent and wholesale destruction of communities. Some of it was at the hands of a single landlord.
But mostly it was at the hands of a disinterested elite who only saw a problem, and suggested that the best answer was to induce movement out of the Highlands rather than capital into the Highlands.
That sentiment is now entirely consigned to the history books, largely due to the growth of the Highland economy.
In November, Scottish Fiscal Commission chair and Economics Professor Graeme Roy wrote an article about the transformation of the Highlands. He contrasted the perception of Sir Donald Mackay, leading economist of his generation, with the reality of economic activity today.
Mackay had argued that “the economic solution to the ‘Highland Problem’ is to induce the movement of labour out of, and not the movement of capital into, the area”.
In contrast, over the last few decades, economic activity per capita has grown in the Highlands from 90 per cent of the Scottish figure in 1998 to 96 per cent in 2019.
What we need is to back the people, the initiatives and the policies that are working – and ditch the ones that aren’t
Professor Roy points to the growth of renewables, increased investment in decommissioning oil and gas and the smelter and sawmill in Fort William.
You can add to that list the food and drink, tourism, textile and culture activities across the region. And workers in every single of these industries are responsible for powering the Highland economy.
It’s a far cry from the sentiment expressed by the Secretary of State for Scotland, Willie Ross, when he established the Highlands and Islands Development Board.
He said: “For 200 years the Highlander has been the man on Scotland’s conscience. No part of Scotland has been given a shabbier deal by history. Too often there has been only one way out of his troubles for the person born in the Highlands – emigration.”
That isn’t the case any more.
On the contrary, businesses and industries in the Highlands have the opposite problem – not enough people to fill the roles and vacancies across the region.
There is increasing discussion about the demographic emergency in the Highlands and Islands. The working age population is shrinking, we are all getting older and the pressures on public services are growing ever more acute.
It is a serious issue that everybody must engage with.
We have all the resources, talent and capability to create jobs, reverse the trend of depopulation and outperform the Scottish economy.
What we need is to back the people, the initiatives and the policies that are working – and ditch the ones that aren’t.
Highland and Island communities are entrepreneurial to their core; history has made them that way.
That’s what drove the economic transformation of the last few decades, and it’s what will stem the depopulation crisis in the more rural areas.
Back the organisations that are bucking the trend, and we will outperform the worst forecasts once again.
Kate Forbes (SNP) is MSP for Badenoch and Strathspey.
