27 Feb 2025
By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
With both UK and Scottish Governments making clear the fresh importance they are placing on economic growth, more focus has been on the role of cities and regions in England than has been said so far in Scotland. Are Scottish cities at risk of being left behind by their English counterparts?
In December, the UK Government published its Devolution White Paper, outlining significant changes for English cities. Local government structures will be overhauled, and regional mayors will gain more control over skills, transport, innovation, and economic development policies. Funding will also be streamlined over several years.
Since 2014 Scottish cities and regions have benefited from UK Government funding programmes. There has been no shortage of initiatives. City Deals, Shared Prosperity Funding, Investment Zones and Green Freeports are all examples that have been delivered directly with local government usually in collaboration with the Scottish Government.
Glasgow City Region now has a strong track record of delivering projects designed and delivered through local partnerships. The newly opened Partick -Govan footbridge across the River Clyde, the wholescale regeneration of Glasgow’s Sighthill district, Greenock’s new Ocean Terminal to support cruise liners and Renfrewshire’s Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District (AMID) next to Glasgow Airport have all successfully invested City Deal funding.
The most recent examples of devolved funding are Scotland’s two Investment Zones in Glasgow and Aberdeen bringing £160m to each over ten years. Decisions are currently being made in Glasgow to invest the funds in the region’s advanced manufacturing sector, drawing on the city’s powerful engineering abilities. The aim is to attract at least as much funding from the private sector.
The Devolution White Paper indicates a significant acceleration of regional devolution in England. How will this affect Scottish cities and regions? Is there a risk that Scottish cities will lose out? In Glasgow we are searching for clues.
One discouraging sign came with the establishment of the UK Government’s Council of Nations and Regions which included English mayors but not the equivalent Scottish council leaders. On face value that decision means Glasgow or Edinburgh will have less direct influence on decision making than Manchester or Birmingham. There would be no Scottish city voices discussing how UK government policy should change to improve growth.
A more positive clue came in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ growth speech last month. Heathrow’s third runway may have been the headline alongside the notion of an Oxford Cambridge Silicon Valley, but one detail was of direct interest to Glasgow.
Reeves announced that the UK National Wealth Fund – set up last October to replace the National Infrastructure Bank –would work with Glasgow, Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire. The Government’s statement explained that ‘Strategic Partnerships’ would be created with each region to help fund investment projects designed to close the £33bn productivity gap that exists between the UK’s major regional cities and the national average.
Since the Devolution White Paper had said very little about the role of cities outside England this announcement is welcome. It is one step towards resolving a major uncertainty that the White Paper created. Would cities and regions outside England benefit from the White Papers proposals for greater powers and resources?
The White Paper proposed, for example, that instead of multiple funding programmes often emerging from different Whitehall departments there will be single ‘integrated’ funding arrangements with each regional authority. That would reduce the complexity and cost of governing the funding programmes and make it much easier for regional leaderships to deliver their economic plans. These single devolution deals would also be agreed over several years although without specifying how many. One would expect the use of separate programmes - often using expensive and frustrating bidding exercises - to reduce.
But if single devolution deals are not confirmed for Scottish cities and regions, does that mean that the sources of UK Government funding would gradually dry up?
Naturally at Glasgow Chamber of Commerce we believe that single devolution deals should be available to Scottish cities.
We have already identified a collection of projects we argue would help increase economic growth. They range across the themes identified in the Devolution White Paper. There should be a regional skills investment plan to overcome the chronic skill shortages experienced by local industry by helping Glaswegians currently unable to access a job.
The next round of investment needed for the Scottish Events Campus would build on the success of the Hydro.
There could be much swifter delivery of the light rail and bus improvements plans expected to be in the Clyde Metro transport scheme. And we would finally build the rail link to Glasgow Airport.
We would add to the investment already being made in our innovation economy. We are seeing an exciting pipeline of projects in engineering technologies like space communications and photonics, health and life sciences and advanced manufacturing emerging from our universities and major companies. We can expand the impact of our three Innovation Districts as catalysts for creating a vibrant base of fast-growing SMEs.
And we can see an opportunity for a major national investment programme in skills, infrastructure and research in the maritime sector. The River Clyde hosts the second largest concentration of maritime business in the UK and it has been neglected for far too long.
These are just our ideas. There will be plenty more coming from individual businesses, universities and colleges and research centres across the region. Indeed, taking part in the processes to consult on how UK Government innovation funding could be spent in Glasgow has for me been hugely encouraging. There are far more good ideas to grow emerging industries available than funds to support them.
The direction of travel in giving regions a bigger role in securing faster economic growth is the right one. Let’s make sure that Scottish cities and regions are properly included. Glasgow's Regional City Deal was announced over ten years ago. Confirming the intention to agree a new single devolution deal for Glasgow would be a good start.
This article was first published in Glasgow Times and The Herald on Thursday 27 February 2025
