10 Jul 2025
By Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
When the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced the outcomes of the Comprehensive Spending Review in June, I was in Asia with a Glasgow Chamber of Commerce trade mission. Glasgow had been invited by the Shanghai Municipal Government to serve as the official guest city at the China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair and the Chamber secured support from UK, Scottish and city governments to take an unusually large business and academic delegation to showcase Glasgow’s growth potential in the Chinese market.
The feedback we have had both from the Scottish delegates and our Chinese hosts has been excellent with several agreements for future trade work signed during the visit.
Here is a practical example of both national governments supporting a local partnership of business, academia and city council to encourage regional economic growth.
It would have been even more cheering if we had arrived home to find that Glasgow and its city region were benefitting from a similar approach in the Comprehensive Spending Review. All it would have taken was a single sentence saying that the UK and Scottish Governments would be working together to establish long-term flexible funding deals for Scottish cities to match those already sorted out for Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. No such sentence appeared.
Instead, I found myself reading Chief Secretary of the Treasury, Darren Jones, in The Herald, arguing that in Scotland the decision to ‘empower the city regions rests firmly with the Scottish Government’. If he really believes that, we are at risk of stepping back a decade in time. Eleven years ago, it was the UK and Scottish Governments that together announced the £1.3 billion Glasgow City Region Deal. That deal was the first of many in Scotland, each designed in collaboration with local stakeholders to demonstrate how joint working between both governments can initiate real empowerment on the ground.
The Chamber, senior business leaders and leading academics have all invested time and energy to help create the structures and capabilities of the Glasgow City Region. We did so in the belief that there was good faith in their value being demonstrated by both the UK and Scottish Governments. We were encouraged by decisions made by the last UK Government to allocate over £300m in additional resources to help the city region grow.
The most recent was the announcement of £160m for a ten-year Investment Zone, supporting the growth of advanced manufacturing. The Chamber was involved in the process for project selection and there were so many more exciting projects - and in many other industry sectors - that could have been funded had the money been available. We can see the region’s growth potential and how it can be unlocked.
Over time, we have become a vigorous advocate for regional devolution deals. We believe that many of the projects our members want to see - particularly in skills, infrastructure, and innovation - are best delivered at the regional level. Projects like the Clyde Metro transport system, our three university-led innovation districts for emerging industries, our city centre renewal plan and investment help to grow our airport and our conference centre, all demonstrate the kind of ambition that regional empowerment can unlock.
We shouldn’t really need to argue the importance of regional devolution deals with the UK Government. It sets out all the reasons in several papers including its English Devolution White Paper; the UK’s low productivity trap, the stagnation of living standards and the unusual economic underperformance of all the UK major cities outside London.
The Chamber had therefore asked for a devolution deal with long-term funding and greater flexibility.
But there is no such deal being proposed for Glasgow – or for any other region in Scotland. Instead, Glasgow is offered confirmation of the Investment Zone announced by the previous government, a share in a new UK wide local growth fund and support from the National Wealth Fund. These are all welcome but the Investment Zone had already been announced and the local growth fund looks set to be small once funds have been allocated across the country. It is also unclear if those funds are expected to deliver on old commitments such as that for Greenock town centre.
The National Wealth Fund’s commitment to a strategic partnership with Glasgow City Region could be more promising, but it is unclear whether there will be any new funds under the control of the regional partnership. If it helps the region attract private finance for projects, it could still prove valuable. However, it appears from the outside to be more like working with a body such as the Scottish National Investment Bank than a genuine devolution deal.
We are not alone in our disappointment. The London-based think tank the Centre for Cities issued its own report describing Glasgow as the ‘missing piece in the big cities’ jigsaw’. Especially worrying is their assessment that the lack of a devolution deal ‘places Glasgow at risk of falling behind its comparators south of the border’.
And yes, of course the Scottish Government has a poor track record on regional devolution. So much of the momentum building behind Glasgow City Region has come from UK Government funding programmes. One notable exception was the Clyde Mission - a Scottish Government initiative that promised much but ultimately fizzled out and ended up being passed to the city region with approaching £30m in funding.
Otherwise the Scottish Government has undoubtedly been slow to devolve.
As one example, the announcement in the Programme for Government of £2m towards a Glasgow City Region response to maritime industry skills shortages was welcome but there is a much bigger prize. Passing apprenticeship funding from Skills Development Scotland direct to the regions instead of to the Scottish Funding Council would be much a better long-term aim. Regional devolution has not been the Scottish Government’s natural default, so all eyes have tended to fall on the UK Government.
If Darren Jones is signalling that momentum on regional devolution is to be stalled until the Scottish Parliamentary elections next May, then sadly, so too the growth potential of Scotland’s largest city region may be stalled as well.
This article was first published in The Herald on Thursday 10 July 2025
