Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [Lords]

Debate between Liam Byrne and Lord Spellar

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Thursday 11th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne]

What a marvellous opportunity to follow a marvellous speech, which I felt hit almost all the right notes.

The Commonwealth games that we will host in Birmingham in the West Midlands will be the greatest Commonwealth games that the world has ever seen. It will be not only the most spectacular festival of Commonwealth sport, but a magnificent festival of our civic spirit—the civic spirit that helped to build our city in the 19th century and propelled our city to become the second city of this nation. I very much hope that the games will not be the last word in the renaissance of culture and sport in our region; they will be just a first step.

If there is one ideal that I hope we can put centre stage, it is the words that Jo Cox gave us: that we have more in common than anything which can ever divide us. I hope that will be the animating spirit of these games. As the youngest city in Europe, I hope we can use that ethos and ethic to act as an inspiration for a revolution in the youth work we have across our city. On Second Reading, I called for the creation of a young Commonwealth leaders’ programme, because, as a city of 160 different nationalities, we need to look to the next generation to help lead the business of bringing a diverse city together to live and play well. I hope we will find it in ourselves to put youth workers back in every ward, with safe spaces for our young people, to connect the inspiration of “more in common” to the great, animating festival of the Commonwealth games so that a young generation will work not only to bring our communities together but to strengthen the relationships in Birmingham and the west midlands with Commonwealth countries around the world. I am grateful to the high commissioners from around the Commonwealth who have begun to talk through that programme with me.

I hope that these games are the catalyst for a transformation of disability sports. As many people know, our city is home to the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine: a place that, frankly, works miracles. I hope that in due course we can bring that centre together with the Commonwealth games team to create, in our green heart of Britain, the great new centre for the Invictus games for the years to come. That is a practical thing that we could do quickly and well.

I hope that these games are the catalyst for an extraordinary cultural renaissance in our part of the world. We are looking forward to an extraordinary decade with not just the city of culture in Coventry, starting most likely in June next year, but the Commonwealth games and then the arrival—when it is finally built—of High Speed 2. There could be an extraordinary transformation of the cityscape in our city region. As the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, this is an optimistic moment and the Bill will give the decade an extraordinary kick-start.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

Following on from what my right hon. Friend and the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said, this Bill is of enormous importance not only for the future of Birmingham and the wider west midlands but for the here and now. As we face a tidal wave of redundancies, this boost to the construction sector, keeping our construction workers in work now, will be enormously important for the long term.

[Liam Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right, and that is the second big point I want to make. This is a partnership. I am grateful for the investment that the Government have made, which will not just help unlock the greatest festival of Commonwealth sport that we have ever seen but bring 5,000 new homes to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood), who I know is watching us. That gain, however, would not be happening without the leadership of Ian Ward and the team at Birmingham City Council. Together, the city council is putting in about £184 million. It had the political courage to step up to the mark when Durban pulled out. Given the halving of Birmingham’s budget in the last 10 years, that was a brave act, a courageous act and a wise act. We will be grateful for that political decision for decades to come.

My right hon. Friend puts his finger on something critical. In the debate we just had on new clause 2, the Minister did not betray much sense of how the world had changed. I hope he will reflect on that remark and what he has heard this afternoon. If the Bank of England is correct—you never know. it might be—we will see unemployment in our region rise by 192,000 next year, to 320,000. That will put unemployment in our region at the highest level we have seen since 1987. The fiscal maths tells us that we need a capital kick-start of about £3.5 billion to deal with unemployment of that significance. As I said in earlier debates, our cultural institutions are crying out to the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport for help. The DCMS must look at the realities of what is going on in the sector and work with the Chancellor to do whatever is necessary to de-risk our bridge from where we are now to the beginning of the city of culture next year.

The prize is significant. I agree with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield that this Bill is an optimistic moment. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us, but it has to lift a generation out of unemployment, out of poverty, out of hunger, and out of hopelessness. We have to make sure that, when the eyes of the world —of 1.5 billion people—are on us in 2022, we dazzle them not simply with an extraordinary spectacle of sport, but with an extraordinary society that, together, we have built.