Hansard

This is an important debate not only for our cities, but for the regions in which they sit and, I argue, for all of Scotland. It is good to see so many members in the chamber—city MSPs and even some who represent non-city areas. I look forward to hearing the views of members of all parties during the debate.

This is the first debate on cities that I have had the opportunity to lead as cities minister and I am pleased to do so. I spent the first half of my life so far living in a city region 25 miles or so from a city, and I have spent the second half living in Glasgow. Therefore, like many others, I know, not only theoretically but from first-hand experience, how important the vibrancy of our cities is. It is important not only to the economic life of the cities and Scotland as a whole, but to the social, cultural and educational life of our country.

Cities and their regions really matter. They are the drivers of economic growth. We know that that is the case not only from domestic experience but from a wealth of international experience. We know that successful cities contribute disproportionately to the wealth of nations and create benefits and opportunities way beyond their boundaries. Therefore, the agenda for cities that I published in December was written and developed with a clear objective in mind: to ensure that our cities and regions are able and supported to make the fullest possible contribution to sustained economic recovery and, beyond our economic recovery, to vibrant economic growth by stimulating economic activity and creating jobs.

As we all know, our cities face a range of challenges, including pockets of endemic poverty, inequality and deprivation. In many of them, poor health remains a key challenge. I will be frank at the outset of the debate. The cities agenda will not, in and of itself, address all the challenges that our cities face but is part of a joined-up package of Government approaches, policies and strategies. With our early years work, our anti-poverty strategy and the equally well strategy, it is part of the Government’s comprehensive approach to tackling the issues. The cities agenda is deliberately and purposely focused on economic growth.

Our cities are recognised as centres of knowledge, innovation and culture, and they have many strengths and assets to build on individually. We can see that if we take a quick tour around our cities. Aberdeen is up there with Houston, Texas as one of the top two energy cities in the world. Dundee has an international reputation in life sciences and a global reach in the computer games industry. Stirling and Inverness are our two smallest and newest cities. Each of them has fantastic natural heritage and a proud history, but they both punch their weight in the here and now, Stirling with its sporting excellence and Inverness in leading medical research and development in diabetes. Edinburgh and my city of Glasgow are United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization cities of literature and music respectively, which makes Scotland the only country in the world with two UNESCO-designated creative cities.

Our cities individually are success stories. We should be proud of each and every one of them—I am, and I am sure that we all are. However, although we are proud of our cities and they are big in a Scottish and even a United Kingdom context, in the global context, they are relatively small, and their size means that they do not always have the scale to put themselves on the global map for key segments of the investment market.

Nevertheless, even in what are incredibly difficult financial times here in Scotland and across the world, we know that investment interest and opportunities remain for the right projects at the right scale. Alone, our six cities will at times struggle to achieve the required scale, but if they come together and collaborate, they have the potential to create a range of compelling investment propositions.

We have some terrific and enviable assets to promote and exploit. We need to get better at doing that in a co-ordinated way to make it easier for international investors to understand what Scotland—as team Scotland—has to offer. We want to support our cities to work better together to build on their combined strength and develop strong investment propositions at a scale that we know will be attractive to potential investors.

With that purpose and focus in mind, we have established and created the Scottish cities alliance, which will be supported and facilitated by the Scottish Council for Development and Industry to deliver the agenda for cities. The alliance will be led by the six city leaders and myself as the cities minister and it will draw upon the expertise of the public, private and academic sectors. It will forge collaborations and create the momentum that is required to ensure that our cities and their regions can play their part in our economic recovery and beyond, and attract the investment and jobs that we know they can attract.

In the public sector, we must ensure that our national agencies—whether that is Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, VisitScotland, Scottish Development International or the Scottish Futures Trust—are aligned with the ambitions of our cities. I know that the private sector is also keen to engage nationally and the Scottish cities alliance will consider how it can work most effectively with that sector to build on successful examples of such an approach at a city and regional level, such as the Aberdeen city and shire economic forum and the Glasgow economic commission.

It is also crucial to draw in the academic sector. I am delighted that the University of Glasgow and the University of St Andrews are together establishing and funding a Scottish cities knowledge centre, which will support the alliance in its work. The centre is intended to pool expertise on city growth issues, draw on the wealth of international experience that we know is out there and provide the alliance with a solid evidence, research and evaluation base.

I readily recognise that the Scottish cities alliance needs to be more than a forum for strategic thinking, discussion and talking. It should be judged on its ability to deliver tangible outcomes. It is therefore critical that it moves forward with purpose and momentum. We want to see real progress in the current session of Parliament, and I hope that the Parliament will come back to the issue in future to measure, judge and scrutinise the alliance’s performance and achievements. That will involve cities successfully taking propositions of scale to market and attracting new and significant investment to Scotland.

When I launched the cities agenda before Christmas, I announced a £5 million cities investment fund to help to give the alliance the momentum that it will require. As I said at question time last week, the detailed operation of the fund will be finalised after we have consulted the six authorities and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, but the clear intention is for the fund to support collaborative programmes between cities that promote growth, lever in additional investment and protect and create jobs. Programmes that allow wider regional collaboration to create additional scale will also be supported.

In today’s climate, £5 million is a significant investment, but it is important to see it not as a fund in itself but as a catalyst to draw in other funding—that is the intention. I can announce today that we are adding to the £5 million cities fund. The Scottish Government is investing a further £2 million in the fund in recognition of the importance of the agenda. The additional funds will focus on collaborative programmes for sustainable cities that will help to move us more quickly towards a low-carbon economy. Taken together, we now have a £7 million catalyst fund that will be used to ensure that the alliance can move rapidly to deliver tangible outcomes, supporting the priorities of our economic strategy.

Far more important than the size of the fund is the impact that we will ensure it has—and it is that on which I believe its success should be judged. The Labour amendment mentions the previous cities growth fund, and I should say at this stage that we will support the amendment. I am happy to acknowledge the cities growth fund, which was designed and implemented at a time when we lived in different financial circumstances from today. However, the independent evaluation made the point that the fund did not have the anticipated impact. My point is therefore that, whatever the size of the fund we create, our driving priority must be to ensure that it has an impact, that it levers in additional funding and that it provides tangible benefits.

I will touch on a point that has been raised with me by non-city MSPs. It was raised by Willie Coffey at last week’s question time—I am not sure whether he is in the chamber today. He and others have asked whether the cities agenda and the fund that goes with it will in any way downplay or disadvantage other parts of the country. My emphatic answer to that is no. As I have said, we focus on our cities as a catalyst to deliver benefits for the wider regional economies and all of Scotland, and we do so with a clear understanding that our cities need to strengthen effective partnerships—not just with each other, but with their wider regions—that recognise the co-dependent relationships that they have with their neighbours.

I firmly believe that a growth agenda for our cities will bring national benefits. Some 86 per cent of Scotland’s population lives within an hour’s drive of one of our cities. It is to cities that so many of us travel for employment, to study, to access services and for cultural and leisure facilities. However, it is not a relationship of dependency on our cities; it is a relationship of co-dependency and interdependency. Without the wider regions, our cities would lack the resources—particularly the human resources—that they need to thrive and succeed. The fact is that, as a nation, we need healthy city, regional, rural and island economies to deliver, so it is right that we tailor our approaches to ensure that we optimise the contribution that each can make.

The last point that I want to make in my opening speech is to stress that the cities agenda is the start, and not the end, of a process. Very often—this commentary is not just on previous Governments; I am sure that it applies to this Government at times, although not often—Governments produce strategies that almost become an end in themselves. It is important that we regard the cities strategy as a starting point. It is what happens now that matters—how we take forward the framework for collaboration and apply the resources in the cities investment fund to lever maximum advantage. That is how we will determine whether the agenda succeeds. I am determined to ensure that it does, so that we have the most successful cities possible and, through our cities, deliver success for the nation.

I look forward to the debate and I am delighted to move,

That the Parliament recognises the vital contributions that Scotland’s cities and their regions can make to delivering the aspirations of the Government Economic Strategy; welcomes the commitment shown by the cities to work collaboratively with each other, with the Scottish Government and with national agencies to optimise that growth for the benefit of Scotland as a whole; notes that the focus of the Scottish Cities Alliance is on creating collaborative opportunities for enhancing sustainable economic growth, attracting large-scale private sector investment and creating jobs; notes that the four themes of the collaborative work are connectivity, sustainability, knowledge and liveability, and welcomes the publication of Scotland’s Cities: Delivering for Scotland alongside the Cities Investment Fund, which is designed to support the Scottish Cities Alliance in developing collaborative programmes that promote growth, lever investment and protect and create jobs.

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