Immigrants who want to become British citizens will win bonus points if they go to live and work in Scotland, where the population is ageing, Jim Murphy, the Scottish secretary, announced today.

A draft Home Office consultation paper, due shortly, on the government’s new policy of “earned citizenship”, singles out the fact of “having lived or worked in a part of the UK in need of increased population [such as Scotland]” as a point worthy of “favourable treatment”.

The credit of living in Scotland will rank alongside skills in short supply, as well as special talents, in science or the arts, and a “proper attitude” towards the adopted country.

Writing in Scotland on Sunday, Murphy reminded fellow Scots that their average age was now 45 – “almost four years older” than his age – and that such a demographic profile put pressure on the welfare state and on future competitiveness.

Scotland’s population has shown a slight increase, from 5,057,400 in 2003 to 5,168,00 last year, and a better-performing economy under devolution has started to reverse decades of outward migration. But Murphy said: “Our need for a growing population is ranked alongside the need to recruit to occupations where we have a shortage.”

He added: “Over the summer we will be consulting on this new points-based route to citizenship, and I am pleased to say living and working in Scotland is proposed as one way to earn points.

“The new Scotland should be a melting pot, embracing long-established immigrant communities from Ireland and Italy, as well as more recent arrivals from the Indian sub-continent and young eastern Europeans. They’ve changed us for the better and widened our horizons.”