‘Get a move on’ call on City Deal
Political Correspondent GLASGOW is lagging behind English cities like Manchester and Liverpool due to a lack of progress on the City Deal, an MP has claimed.
Paul Sweeney, Glasgow North East Labour MP, said that more than three years after the £1bn deal was signed, big projects have not even started.
Mr Sweeney also claimed that Glasgow is losing out on influence to the ‘northern Powerhouse cities in England as a result of local government being underfunded and power being centralised at Holyrood.
In a House of Commons debate, he said the Tories didn’t care enough about the City Deal and accused the SNP of cutting the city’s funding.
Mr Sweeney said: “More than three years after the deal was agreed, the plan for the Glasgow Airport rail link, which was meant to be a key component of the deal, has yet to be agreed.
“I would like the UK Government to take this opportunity to explain to us Glaswegians why there has been such a significant lack of progress.”
He said both governments were pre-occupied with constitutional arguments, adding: “Put simply, the Tories do not care enough about the deal to monitor it and press for progress.”
The MP said Glasgow needed greater municipal clout. He said: It is fair to say that Glasgow has been progressively smothered by the process of devolution in the past 20 years.”
He said Edinburgh “sucks up “power from councils, adding the SNP has made it worse with budget cuts.
He added: “Rebranding the city council as a city government is just dressing mutton up as lamb, because without any substantive changes to Glasgow’s real political power it is nothing more than changing the letterhead on the city council stationery.”
SNP MPs reminded him Labour were in charge in Glasgow for longer than the SNP since the city deal was signed.
Stewart McDonald Glasgow South SNP MP, said: “Is there no responsibility on the part of his colleagues in Glasgow City Chambers?”
Jake Berry, UK local government minister, responded to the criticism stating progress had been made, with more than £100m spent so far.
He said: “One example is some £89.3 million of City Deal funding to deliver the canal and north element of the Sighthill regeneration project, which is one of the biggest of its type outside London.”