Levelling-up Fund Round 2: Bidding Process

It is a scandal. That is exactly what I am saying because that is exactly what we were told and the explanation the council was given. At a time when local authorities are feeling the financial strain more than ever, it was just wrong and, frankly, cruel.

For Glasgow City Council, funded by the Scottish Government—a Government who, unlike this one, have to live within their immediate means and, unlike this one, have to provide a balanced budget—the financial flexibility simply is not there. Glasgow City Council also has other financial pressures, unique to the city, in that when the SNP was elected it finally settled the previous Labour council’s decade-long equal pay dispute with mainly female employees. That was absolutely the right thing to do and I am extremely proud of my SNP councillor colleagues for that, but it was a massive bill that Glasgow will be paying for years to come.

The council was already in an extremely tight financial position because the Scottish Government are in a tight financial position, and that position was even tighter because it is paying the price for the previous council’s 10-year battle with women workers. The council was doing the best it could with the resources it had. Let me say to everyone here that Glasgow City Council’s work is regularly replicated around the UK because it runs some inspirational programmes despite financial constraints. However, given those additional constraints, it was even more galling to see the UK Government wave the carrot of levelling-up funding in front of our noses, only to snatch it away at the last minute.

I said that I do not agree with the way the funding is awarded. Forcing councils to compete against one another is a terrible way to distribute finance that should, by rights, just be given to local authorities to address local problems. Of course, the possibility of securing much-needed investment could not be turned down, so the work was done, and the bids were submitted in good faith.

Glasgow had some fantastic bids. We know this, not because we have seen them—although we have—but because our council officers were told as much by UK civil servants. Until the night before the announcement, the discussions were about which of them were most likely to be successful. I would like the Minister to explain to us exactly what happened in the 24 hours leading up to the final decisions being made.

My own constituency’s bid was for the regeneration of Saracen, Stonyhurst and Allander Streets in Possilpark, creating an urban park and building on the excellent work of the community-led business improvement district. To me, that is the epitome of levelling up—working with communities to build economic prosperity and resilience in areas of deprivation to support and develop what these communities have already started themselves. It is about supporting their empowerment. Instead, Possilpark has been discarded. The people of Possilpark deserve better.

The bid for Easterhouse, another area of Glasgow with historical and generational inequality, was for an incredible project that would have redeveloped the local shopping centre and public realm, not only linking the college and social enterprise hub but improving active travel routes and access to and the promotion of the wonderful Seven Lochs wetland park. It would have been a much-needed boost to the area, which was, statistically, the worst impacted by covid in the whole of Scotland. Again, Easterhouse and the people of Easterhouse were discarded. Again, I say that the people of Easterhouse deserve so much better.