Levelling-up Fund Round 2: Bidding Process

I said the sitting was suspended until 5.7 pm because we did not have the Minister with us. We now have the Minister and all the players in the next debate. I propose that we start now and allow it to continue until 6.7 pm, because that allows for the injury time left over from the previous debate.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Levelling Up Fund round 2 bidding process.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. Round two of levelling up: what on earth was that all about? [Laughter.] Is that an intervention already?

It seems like a lifetime ago that Boris Johnson stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street promising that he was going to level up the UK with money to areas that had been left behind, ravaged by successive Tory Governments—those might not have been his exact words—and bearing the brunt of each and every austerity measure, where the poor pay for the excesses of the rich, as per usual. Two Prime Ministers later and we have just had the announcement of the second phase of the levelling-up fund.

Glasgow submitted seven bids to the second round, many of which would have helped to redevelop some of the most deprived communities in Scotland. Officers and councillors spent months preparing the bids to give our communities the best possible chance of securing funding, and the latest estimates are that around £500,000-worth of officer time went into them. That is why I have secured this debate. It was a complete waste of effort and a complete waste of the energy, skills and knowledge that Glasgow City Council professionals and councillors alike poured into the bids. I pay tribute to them for the incredible work they did; however, as I said, it was a complete waste of their time and a shameful waste of half a million pounds that my local authority simply cannot afford.

It was waste, but not because they were not successful. I accept that if funding is going to be provided in that way—I do not agree with it and will come to that—there are no guarantees. The reason why it was a waste of time and money is that it was not possible for them to be successful as the Government changed the rules at the eleventh hour. My understanding is that Ministers intervened at the last minute to say that if a local authority had been awarded funding of any amount in the first round, no bids could be awarded funding in this round. That sudden and inexplicable shifting of the goal posts ruled all of Glasgow’s bids ineligible for funding.

Is my hon. Friend seriously telling the Chamber that local authorities had spent hours and months preparing a bid and that at the last minute the scorings were changed by ministerial interference because a local authority may have had funding in round one and was then automatically disqualified in round two? That is a scandal.

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.

In view of the fact that economic development is generally a devolved function, why do the Scottish Government not fund such an important project?

Can I have a little longer to explain this to the right hon. Gentleman? The Scottish Government have a fixed budget. It is fixed by his Government. They decide how much they can spend. As I said earlier, they have to live within their immediate means. If we look at Possilpark, money has been—[Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to be listening to my answer, so why ask the question in the first place? Money does go in from the Scottish Government. If he is suggesting that Scotland is not eligible for this levelling-up funding, that is a different question. Maybe the Minister will confirm that we are eligible for it, because it is our taxpayers’ money as well.

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate and I hope to have the opportunity to make the case for my constituency a bit later. To respond to her specific points, does the Scottish Government not have tax-varying powers? This is quite obviously an exciting project but, by the sound of what the hon. Lady is saying, it is not sufficiently important for the Scottish Government to fund it in Glasgow.

That is utter nonsense. I am not going to repeat what the right hon. Gentleman just said. Lots of funding is going into both areas. That is our taxpayers’ money as well. Why should the Scottish Government increase taxes—they cannot do it in year—when we have already sent the taxes down here? We are supposed to get some of them back; we are supposed to get more of them back than we have been. Incidentally—this is turning into a response to the right hon. Gentleman, although I am not sure he is listening—the people of Scotland voted overwhelmingly to stay in Europe. If we had stayed in Europe, almost double what was available in the levelling-up fund would be available to the whole of the UK. I think he needs to think about what he is saying; I think he is well aware of what he is saying and the implications.

Then we look at who got the funding. While my constituency and other Glasgow constituencies got nothing, the Prime Minister’s wealthy constituency was awarded £19 million. It simply exposes the lie of levelling up for what it is—just another way for the Conservatives to funnel public money to their own pet projects. The idea of spreading the funding evenly around the UK is somehow a fair way to do it is total nonsense. To properly address inequality and deprivation, we have to do more than just throw a few pounds at communities every once in a while. We need to pump money and support into the places that need it, and we need to do it again and again. That takes a level of courage and conviction that the Westminster Government simply are not showing.

That got me thinking that perhaps we are not all on the same page and that the Government have no desire to address underlying inequality and deprivation. I wondered why, and I can only conclude that the UK Government blame the people and communities living with serious levels of deprivation for that deprivation. Do the Government have an ideological belief that it is somehow the fault of the people in those communities, and that they should just leave them to it? I do not know what other conclusion can be reached.

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) for securing the debate.

I support the general notion of levelling up and am pleased that Clacton has won its most recent bid. It is set to receive £20 million, and my hon. Friend the Minister is well aware of how grateful I am. However, it has to be said that it is richly deserved, given the years of headlines we have seen about the decline of coastal towns. In short, we are too often overlooked. Furthermore, in my constituency is the most deprived ward anywhere in the UK—not a thing to be proud of, and something that must be addressed.

That levelling-up money very much chimes with my long-standing push in this place that it is unfair for the east of England to be treated in an homogeneous way. Yes, the home counties are rich, but not all their constituent parts are. Clacton has some areas of deprivation that easily exceed those anywhere else in the nation. We need to sort that out, so there is much further work to do and further bids that need winning.

From an infrastructure point of view, the district of Tendring is divided physically. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) and I—in Clacton—share the peninsular on which Tendring sits, but regular travel from his constituency to mine is difficult, to say the least. All roads lead to Colchester and not across the area. We have a new freeport coming at Harwich, with all its accompanying benefits, which is great news, but we need access from Clacton urgently. They need us and we need them.

The Essex County Council transport bid for levelling-up funding failed, as did the Tendring District Council high street funding bid. Improving Clacton town centre with the £20 million is a fantastic start, and we are grateful, but there is so much further to go. Transport infrastructure for Tendring has to be the long-term strategic goal.

Before I call Mike Amesbury, let me say that we have six hon. Members seeking to participate in this debate, and we have half an hour before the wind-ups, which will start at quarter to 6. I will not impose a time limit, but I hope Members will bear that in mind.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. I want to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing such a timely debate. Many communities in great need have lost out in both rounds of levelling-up funding. I note that the hon. Member for Clacton (Giles Watling) has been successful and I congratulate him and his community on that.

The Government expect places that receive funding to be grateful for a partial refund on money that has been systematically stripped out of their communities, decimating local services, whether that is children’s services for the most disadvantaged or adult services and social care, not to mention grounds and environmental maintenance. Those are just some of the key services that councils provide.

Nearly £500 million has been cut from Cheshire West and Chester Council’s budget over the last 13 years, while hard-pressed residents are expected to pick up the bill through astronomical council tax rises—in modern terminology this is known as core spending power. The Government have failed on levelling up, and they have even given up the pretence of trying. Look at Richmond and the award there, then look at Knowsley. That is a prime example of that.

At the core of this failure is the fundamentally flawed system and an unfair “Hunger Games” bidding process, which I know my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), our Front-Bench spokesman, will refer to. Many local authorities have had to go through this process. The Local Government Association—in which I should declare an interest as a vice-president—has estimated that each bid costs an average of £30,000, successful or not.

The system is not measured according to need, as it should be, but is seemingly influenced by political patronage at times. In my constituency, a very good and comprehensive bid was put forward by Cheshire West and Chester Council for funding for a new Winnington bridge travel corridor and brownfield development of 1,500 houses. The bridge is a key piece of infrastructure that serves industry, businesses and local people in not just my constituency but neighbouring Tatton. The council simply does not have the money to fund such an infrastructure project, and there does not seem to be any other Department for Transport scheme that would do the job. If levelling up were to mean anything, surely that bid would have been successful. The Government talk about “brownbelt first”, but 1,500 houses that would be good to go if the infrastructure was in place have now essentially been rejected.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing the debate.

Over recent years, Torbay has succeeded in many bids, with a significant level of investment provided by the Government since 2015. That includes the Paignton future high streets fund, where we got £13.4 million, and the Torquay town deal, worth £21.9 million. Prior to 2015, it was normally news when Torbay made the list for a funding announcement, as we were often overlooked; now, it is news when we do not. That shows the turnaround in how our bay is regarded, but it does not dampen the sense of disappointment that, for the second time, our bids to the levelling-up fund have failed, despite Torbay being one of the areas where demographics would suggest that levelling up would be aimed.

For background, two bids were submitted in relation to Torbay. The first was the “Fish and Chips” bid, as it was termed, looking to support the expansion of Brixham fish market, which last year saw record sales of more than £60 million, and our cutting-edge photonics sector. The fishing element alone could have allowed for an additional £20 million of catch to be processed through the market each year, creating a forecast 160 new year-round jobs and putting more than £38.5 million into the local economy. The second bid, submitted in partnership with our neighbours in Devon, was for the south Devon cycleway, which would have provided a safe travel network on the most used commuter routes through Teignbridge and Torbay, as well as providing travel choices to Newton Abbot rail station and the upcoming Edginswell rail station. Both those bids failed, the fish market project for the second time.

I accept that there are some questions that we need to consider locally about our approach for the 3rd round, so it would be helpful for the feedback on those bids to be as clear as possible. Is the fish market project one that the Government would fund under levelling up? If not, then, no matter what my thoughts may be on it personally, we can at least reconsider our approach and not waste effort on a third bid. I would also be interested to hear what impact the failure to deliver other Government-funded projects by the coalition of Lib Dems and Independents running Torbay Council may have had on the success or otherwise of our bids. An example is the land release fund, where, after about four years, the £3 million offered has not actually seen a house built. Then we come on to the various delays in their getting major projects under the town deal and Paignton future high streets fund under way. I appreciate that demanding funding on the one hand and then not spending it on the other is hardly a persuasive approach, so it would be helpful to know what impact that had on our success or otherwise in relation to the bids and what considerations there will be, going forward.