Economic Regeneration (Glasgow)

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Westminster Hall

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I join my colleagues in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) on securing the debate. During 12 years as an elected Member of both this House and the Scottish Parliament, she has demonstrated her commitment to the city of Glasgow. I am delighted to stand side by side with her and every other Glasgow Member of Parliament to say that our first priority is and always will be to stand up for the great city of Glasgow, which we are all proud to be from and serve.

From the outset, it is important to recognise the huge amount of regeneration that has taken place in the city of Glasgow over the past 13 years. Within my constituency, we have seen tremendous regeneration next to the Clyde, involving the media Hub, the BBC, ITV, the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre development, the Clyde auditorium and the science centre. I am pleased to say that all that development is happening within my constituency. There has also been tremendous development in the city centre. Sauchiehall street and Buchanan street have the second highest footfall of any UK city centre, second only to Oxford street in London. There has also been a huge amount of housing regeneration right across the city. However, sadly, that has stalled through the recession and as a result of these difficult times.

As the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) rightly pointed out, the 2014 Commonwealth games will provide a great opportunity to sell Glasgow not only nationally but globally, and will bring opportunity for the east end of the city. It is important to recognise that Glasgow has had a tumultuous economic history, and that the growth and development seen in recent years is extremely fragile, particularly in such a tough economic climate. All hon. Members present today understand that regeneration is driven by economic growth, be it a particular area or the nation as a whole. The regeneration that Glasgow enjoyed under 13 years of a Labour Government is at threat at its roots as a result of inaction from the Scottish Government and a new UK Government policy. However, as with all development and regeneration, cutting off support too early means cutting the lifeline to projects, which will end before they have begun, squandering the initial investment and leaving communities back where they started.

Therefore, in spite of the current climate, it is important that we ask the Government to remember fragile areas such as Glasgow when they make cuts and choose where to invest. That includes cuts to initiatives such as employment zones, and investment in projects such as high-speed rail. The people of Glasgow have been forgotten in the past, when the closure of the shipyards left generations unemployed, and I hope this debate will help to ensure that Glasgow is not forgotten again.

It is important to remember that regeneration is not only about the physical development of new areas through Government and developers investing large amounts of capital, but giving renewed energy to existing systems and supporting the local economy and local people, so that Glasgow can regenerate itself from within. One way that the previous Government began to achieve that was by supporting unemployed people back into work—an essential step to bring growth back into deprived areas is to increase employment.

Despite investment in Glasgow in the last decade, which has improved prospects for thousands of people, the city still has one of the highest unemployment rates in Scotland and has been hit hard by the recession. The announcement by the Government that they will scrap the future jobs fund, which created more than 1,100 jobs for Glasgow and 15,500 jobs across Scotland, is devastating. The Government insist that their replacement back to work programme—when it eventually appears—will provide a more effective system for getting people back to work. However, in the news just yesterday, we heard that the number of people expected to benefit from the scheme in 2012-13 will be down by almost 300,000 on the number who benefited from the previous Government’s programme nationwide.

Labour’s employment zones, which were due to be scrapped six months before the new work programme, were also of great benefit to the city of Glasgow. I am pleased that the Government have done a U-turn on scrapping them six months before the new work programme had begun. It is a shame that it took Labour party pressure from the Opposition Benches and Glasgow Labour MPs having to fight with the Government to make them do that U-turn. The Government should have seen sense in the first place.

We have to recognise that with regeneration and unemployment, one size does not fit all. The Government need to demonstrate that they are paying attention to areas with serious long-term unemployment problems through plans to provide focused support to get people in those areas back to work, particularly given their plan to penalise the long-term unemployed with policies such as a 10% cut in their housing benefit.

Poverty and a lack of opportunity are huge problems in my constituency, and the cuts to regeneration projects such as the Glasgow airport rail link and the Clyde Gateway, coupled with cuts in employment programmes, only threaten to compound the situation. It is important to recognise that the people are willing to work, but jobs must be available for them to fill. It is the growth of Scottish business that will ultimately drive the creation of the economy that Glasgow requires to regenerate itself. Therefore, in addition to supporting work programmes and investing capital in Glasgow itself, the Government must be mindful of longer-term policy decisions that will affect Glasgow’s independent growth. That includes supporting Glasgow’s growing sectors and ensuring that it remains well connected.

The Glasgow to Edinburgh improvement project will go a long way toward supporting Glasgow’s growth by improving connectivity between the two cities, reducing travel times and costs to businesses, and creating one central hub. Although strengthening Scotland’s internal links is important, Glasgow will struggle to present itself as a viable place for start-ups, or to maintain a good environment for growth, if it is not adequately connected to the rest of the UK. The Scottish market alone is not large enough to support very large businesses, particularly those in manufacturing, and international businesses will require strong links with London and the rest of the UK market before they will be attracted to settling in Glasgow. That is why it is such a concern that the plans for High Speed 2 do not currently include an extension to Scotland. Under the present proposals, journey times between London and Glasgow will be reduced by only half an hour if High Speed 2 terminates in Manchester. With current proposals planned for completion as far off as 2025, that prompts the question of how long Glasgow, and indeed the rest of Scotland, will have to wait before they benefit from an adequate rail connection to the rest of the UK.

Britain is already behind our European counterparts in providing proper high-speed connections—the French TGV began operating more than 25 years ago. Scotland’s growth will be actively disadvantaged if there is not even a longer-term plan to link Scotland with the rest of Europe. When we add to that the recent announcement that British Midlands International is to stop its Glasgow to London service, we can understand the deep concerns the Scottish business community will have when it finds competing in the international market increasingly challenging. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh city councils have come together on this. I can assure you, Mr Gale, that Glasgow and Edinburgh do not come together on many issues, but they have on high-speed rail. Independent research conducted for both councils has shown that a high-speed link could be worth up to £7 billion to the Scottish economy. What Glasgow needs in order to grow is a long-term commitment from the Government that high-speed rail for Scotland is a top priority, and that they will endeavour to make it happen at the same time it happens for the north of England.

Glasgow is a vibrant city and a great place to live, and I wholeheartedly believe that it will continue to grow if we can create opportunities for the people living there. There is no real reason why, given the right support, Glasgow cannot become an economic hub in its own right and help to drive growth for the rest of Scotland. What Glasgow needs is continued commitment from the Government to ensure that those opportunities will begin to appear, and evidence to show that Glasgow has not been forgotten, as it sadly was in the past.