Hansard

I entirely accept that point, but rolling the fund into the allocation meant that it was used to pursue the Scottish Government’s priorities, whereas its purpose had been to allow cities to pursue their own priorities.

We welcome the cabinet secretary’s announcement of the £5 million cities investment fund and the £2 million for sustainability projects, but we must regard the funding in its proper context, which is the scale of the future resource that might be required to do the policy justice. It is a matter of regret that the Government has not taken the opportunity to restore the cities growth fund, as Labour said it would do in its manifesto.

Members will have read the briefing from the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which describes the approach to sustainability as a missed opportunity. I have raised the issue with the cabinet secretary in written questions, to which she has responded. I am glad that the Government has responded by providing a dedicated funding stream for projects that will promote sustainability. That element of funding has significant potential, as it could encourage collaboration between our six cities to determine what could be done to make them greener and to share learning between them.

The original £5 million amounted to just £830,000 per city. We have several questions about how the fund will operate, and the cabinet secretary alluded to where we could look for more detail. The funding is to be used to prepare business cases in order that other moneys can be leveraged in to support the cities agenda. That might be of more value to smaller authorities than to larger ones, so how will we ensure that we get the maximum benefit in deciding which projects are to be supported? Who will be directly involved in deciding on bids? What criteria will they use? Will only local authorities be able to bid, or will other partners be involved too? SNP back benchers have even suggested that community groups might be able to bid. I appreciate that the cabinet secretary said that the Government will consult the cities on some of those points, but I hope she agrees that a good starting point for the strategic use of what is a welcome but small fund would be to use the criterion that was applied by the previous cities growth fund, whereby projects had to be of regional significance and benefit.

The Scottish cities knowledge centre is a welcome development, and I congratulate Glasgow and St Andrews universities on it. Evaluating and understanding what works and undertaking comparative work on what is being done elsewhere will be valuable and essential in ensuring the future development of the cities agenda. That is perhaps more important than ever in a time of straitened public resources. I hope that those with an interest in developing a bolder cities policy can look forward to some imaginative reports emanating from those experts.

You would be surprised, Presiding Officer, if I did not mention some of the priorities that my, and indeed the cabinet secretary’s, city—Glasgow—might wish to be part of the debate. On connectivity, Labour again urges the Scottish Government to investigate all options to provide support for air route development. Glasgow City Council has stepped in to provide a small fund in the absence of a national scheme. Although the council is to be congratulated on that, the fund does not replace the support that Government previously provided, and it cannot alone ensure that our key transport and business hubs are connected to the markets around the world where opportunities for increased trade exist.

That is one of a number of areas in which the strategy does not go as far as it could have done. It does not respond to the calls from Edinburgh and Glasgow for further reform of the disbursal of business rates. There is no mention of surface public transport links, particularly a link to Glasgow airport, which remains a key missing link without which the city cannot grow properly. Indeed, a link to regional and national public transport infrastructure could benefit the whole country. Today’s debate comes at a time when Glasgow’s newspaper, the Evening Times, has launched a campaign to save stations on the rail network because Transport Scotland seems to have misunderstood the very nature of an urban environment and has identified rail stops as being too close together. Of course they are close together. That is how people live in a city; indeed, it is probably one of the definitions of a city.

In Dundee, there have already been calls for the fund to be used to create a jobs task force, and in Edinburgh we need action to tackle the fact that the capital has the highest percentage of unemployed 16 to 24-year-olds. Aberdeen and Inverness desperately require improvements to their trunk road connections, but on a slightly smaller scale, they also require assistance to link the major trunk roads within their city boundaries at locations such as the Haudagain roundabout.

The Deputy First Minister’s appointment as cities minister has perhaps been branded by more cynical types than me as part of the SNP’s local government election campaign. Only last weekend, she was pictured with her group of wannabe city fathers at the Glasgow campaign launch. I say “city fathers” advisedly, because it appears that the SNP forgot to select many women to run for the council. If the agenda for cities is the opening salvo in the campaign, I am afraid that the Deputy First Minister’s bang has been somewhat undermined by the lack of buck provided.

The Scottish Labour Party welcomes this slightly overdue debate, and we welcome the publication of the strategy, as far as it goes. We would have welcomed an investment fund that was more akin to the cities growth fund. The purpose of our amendment is to highlight the level of ambition that that fund demonstrated, which goes well beyond what the cabinet secretary outlined today.

I hope that, during the debate, there will be some support for more ambition. Getting support for Scotland’s cities right could help us to get much more right for Scotland’s economy. In each region, there are opportunities to do more. We must recognise that, as the cabinet secretary rightly said, the publication of one document and the creation of one strategy group to talk about the big ideas that we need are not enough. We need the big ideas to be advanced now. We hope that the cities alliance will set out a radical vision that is bold enough to make clear the tools that it needs to really do the job.

I move amendment S4M-01740.1, to insert at end:

“; further recognises that this new fund builds on the success of the previous Cities Growth Fund, which provided substantial and targeted support for the development of Scotland’s cities amounting to £173 million between 2003 and 2008, and further welcomes the initiative as a renewed focus on the actual and potential contribution of Scotland’s cities to economic prosperity and job creation through better connectivity, sustainability, better use of knowledge and improved liveability for all those who live and work in Scotland’s cities, their regions and in the country as a whole.”

15:20