Skills and Growth

Alison Thewliss Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in this important debate on skills and growth. I begin by paying tribute to those who have made their maiden speeches this afternoon, some of whom have left now. I associate myself with the comments of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr Mahmood) about ESOL and English as a second language, which is a huge issue in my constituency too. I was touched by the tributes of the hon. Member for Bradford East (Imran Hussain). He is a huge credit to his family and he should be an inspiration to all the young people in Bradford. The hon. Member for Derby North (Amanda Solloway) is not my in-laws’ MP, unfortunately, but my husband bears the same name as the artist from that town, so I have a soft spot for it.

I intend to focus on the need to improve skills, particularly in the area that I represent. My predecessors in the seat—Anas Sarwar, Mohammad Sarwar, Mike Watson and Robert McTaggart—all made reference in their maiden speeches to the need to boost employment in the constituency, so it seems appropriate that I should make my maiden speech this afternoon.

There have been many changes in employment in Glasgow Central over the years, marked in the main by a decline in heavy industry and a move to a more service-based economy. The situation is similar in many constituencies, as we have heard this afternoon. There are particular challenges in that. I urge anyone who is not familiar with the work of Scotland’s outgoing chief medical officer, Sir Harry Burns, to seek out his thoughts on the disproportionate effects that de-industrialisation has had on the city of Glasgow and on the health and wellbeing of the people who live there. His key point is that people must have a sense of control over their lives. A sense of pride in one’s work is absolutely vital, which is why it is so important to build up skills and support people to achieve.

People who lose their skills can suffer the effects of hopelessness for the rest of their lives. Sir Harry Burns often refers to the late, great Jimmy Reid, whose portrait hangs in the People’s Palace in Glasgow Green. Jimmy Reid’s famous Glasgow University rectoral address, which the Scottish Government have made available to students across Scotland, contains much about alienation and a critique of the rat race. I ask hon. Members to reflect on this quote:

“To appreciate fully the inhumanity of this situation, you have to see the hurt and despair in the eyes of a man suddenly told he is redundant without provision made for suitable alternative employment, with the prospect in the west of Scotland, if he is in his late forties or fifties, of spending the rest of his life in the Labour Exchange. Someone, somewhere has decided he is unwanted, unneeded, and is to be thrown on the industrial scrap heap. From the very depth of my being, I challenge the right of any man or any group of men, in business or in government, to tell a fellow human being that he or she is expendable.”

It is in that vein that I implore the Government to change track. I urge them, instead of beating people of all ages with sanctions, to invest in enabling people to develop their skills and use their talents, and to support people in employment.

The Scottish Government have done a great deal in the areas over which they have control. More people than ever are active in Scotland’s labour market, and we are taking action to help them into work. Economic inactivity is at the lowest level on record. When I wrote this speech earlier, I put that the female employment rate was 72.4%, but it is actually 72.5%; it has gone up in the figures that were released today, making it the highest in the UK and among the highest in the EU. Increases in childcare entitlement, support for women to start their own businesses and a raft of support to tackle youth unemployment are all helping women into work. That should be commended and reflected here as well.

Figures released today show that youth unemployment is at its lowest rate for six years. The Scottish Government continue to act to address the long-term effects of unemployment through strategies such as “Developing the Young Workforce” and the refreshed youth employment strategy, and initiatives such as Community Jobs Scotland, the youth employment Scotland fund and “Opportunities for All”.

Our employability fund in 2013-14 provided £34 million to offer 17,150 pre-employment skills training places to unemployed people of all ages. It achieved 68% successful job outcomes, compared with the UK Government’s Work programme, which averages 20%. During the past year, the Scottish Government’s Partnership Action for Continuing Employment initiative for responding to redundancy situations, like those of which Jimmy Reid spoke, supported 12,161 individuals and 252 employers over 392 sites in Scotland. The latest research shows that 72% of those surveyed who received PACE support obtained employment within six months. The significance of that to workers and their families cannot be downplayed. We seek further powers to make work pay—powers to raise wages and to build the fairer Scotland that we seek. We have a mandate for that, and the people of Scotland have high expectations that it will happen.

I am proud to have been allowed the honour of representing the Calton ward as a councillor in Glasgow over the past eight years. I was sad to leave that role to come here, although I was pleased with the result. The ward covers the Calton, Bridgeton, Dalmarnock, Parkhead, Gallowgate, Reidvale, Saltmarket, Lilybank, and Barrowfield communities. Despite unfair characterisations of the east end of Glasgow, kinder and more generous people are not to be found anywhere, so I am glad that the Glasgow Central constituency encompasses some of those communities.

The Calton is one of Glasgow’s oldest communities and it has the distinction of requiring “the” in its title. It is a community dominated by formidable women, such as the late Betty McAllister, a community activist and Labour stalwart, who famously told a certain Conservative Prime Minister in most unparliamentary language what she could do with her poll tax. I firmly believe that the UK Government have never done enough for communities such as the Calton, and I seek a better deal for all such communities.

Bridgeton and Dalmarnock have seen stunning transformation over the past few years, with community-led regeneration through the urban regeneration company Clyde Gateway, which is a partnership between the Scottish Government, Scottish Enterprise, Glasgow City Council and South Lanarkshire Council. Clyde Gateway has learned the lessons of failed regeneration projects that were imposed on people, and it is working closely with the local community to spearhead the changes in the area and turn around decades of post-industrial decline. Clyde Gateway has brought much needed investment to the area and supported 700 local people into work, some of whom are working for the very first time. Clyde Gateway has seized the opportunity brought to the area by the Commonwealth Games, and it has embedded good practice, working incredibly hard alongside local people to improve their lives. Through the innovative use of community benefit clauses in contracts, Glasgow residents have been able to access apprenticeships and many have now moved on to employment. Any Member in whose constituency construction work is taking place should find out whether such a clause can be brought to bear, because they were of huge value to local people in my constituency.

The offer of an apprenticeship was not the only important thing, however; for a significant number of people in the area, their skills were not adequate to allow them to be considered for an apprenticeship. In the Clyde gateway area, 46% of people do not have formal qualifications, but that is being addressed by community centres, housing associations and other agencies, which are all working hard to target that group and ensure that people of all ages can acquire the qualifications and the soft skills that they need to get into the workplace. In the area covered by Clyde Gateway, the number of people moving into higher education has improved from 11% to 17% since 2008, but it still lags far behind the overall Scottish figure of nearly 40%. There is a lot still to be done, but things are moving in the right direction.

Clyde Gateway has a 20-year plan, and that foresight is what is required; there is no quick fix for problems of de-industrialisation and generational unemployment. The UK Government must look at the example of Clyde Gateway and factor meaningful training into their plans, otherwise they will set people up to fail. I invite all hon. Members to come to Glasgow to see the transformation that is taking place, and to speak to local people, such as Grace Donald, whose powers of persuasion have seen Scottish Government Ministers part with many a bawbee.

Many hon. Members have spoken passionately about their constituencies, but few constituencies can be as diverse and exciting as Glasgow Central. It covers the city centre, which has the best shopping area outside London, the international financial services district, the vibrant merchant city and institutions such as Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian Universities, the world famous Charles Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art—at which the exceptionally talented students have their degree show just now—and the City of Glasgow and Glasgow Kelvin Colleges. They all combine to make Glasgow a vibrant and creative city that leads in many sectors.

There are too many brilliant community organisations to mention each by name, but I would like to single out the Glasgow Women’s library in its new home in Bridgeton. Its staff and volunteers deserve recognition for the work that they have done for women from all backgrounds in Glasgow and beyond. I am proud to be the first woman MP for Glasgow Central, and I will donate to the library’s archive a copy of this speech along with my rosette and my yellow election dress.

The city bears the slogan “People Make Glasgow”, and that is absolutely true. Glasgow Central is diverse in its population, with many churches, mosques, gurdwara and the synagogue in Garnethill. There are people of many faiths and none, with many languages and backgrounds. Some are born and bred, and others, like me, have chosen to make Glasgow their home and raise their family there.

Glasgow Central is dominated by the great River Clyde, which flows through it and deserves to be a focal point of our city. North of the Clyde are the city centre and the communities of Townhead, Garnethill, Dundasvale, Cowcaddens, Anderston, Yorkhill, Park Circus and Finnieston. South of the Clyde are the communities of Toryglen—where, I am sad to say, Government Members will not find very many Tories—Hutchesontown, Oatlands, the Gorbals, Laurieston, Govanhill, Strathbungo, Pollokshields, Dumbreck, Cessnock, Kinning Park and Tradeston. Each area has a distinct identity, which is why I have mentioned them all by name. To me, Glasgow is like a series of villages, rather than an urban mass, and I aim to respect and represent each one of them.

The constituency contains many wonderful arts and cultural institutions, such as the Kings theatre, the Tron, the Tramway, Kelvingrove Art Gallery, the People’s Palace, the Panopticon, where Stan Laurel played, and of course the much-beloved Barrowland ballroom. I was sad to see that one such institution, the Arches, went into administration last week, and I hope that a solution can be found to keep it open. Glasgow Central has modern venues too, such as the SSE Hydro arena, which has a very significant distinction: our First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is the only politician to fill the 12,000-seater venue.

My election result is no mean achievement; the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Mr Jenkin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) can surely testify to that as former candidates for the seat. In winning in Glasgow Central, I have managed to achieve something that Nicola Sturgeon has not: defeating a Sarwar. In all seriousness, I would like to say a few words of thanks to my predecessor, Anas Sarwar, who represented Glasgow Central with great enthusiasm from 2010, and to his father Mohammed Sarwar who became the UK’s first Muslim MP when he was elected in 1997 for the Glasgow Govan Constituency. They worked hard over the years for the communities of Glasgow Central, and I thank them for their endeavours.

The result in Glasgow Central in the early hours of 8 May was nothing short of extraordinary. It came on the back of decades of discontent in the city. These are communities who became scunnered with the Labour party, but not with politics. The referendum has changed Scotland, resulting in the most politically engaged and educated population anyone has ever seen. In Glasgow Central people campaigned to save Govanhill baths, to save their schools, to save the Accord centre, to keep the Buchanan Street steps, and to secure a yes vote in the city of Glasgow. The Labour party slung them all a deafie, and now the people have had their say. I and the SNP will do all we can to honour their trust.