How defence skills training can help fill our empty High Street shops
Andy Burnham was in Lanarkshire last week, setting out his vision of how politics can be done differently.
Andy is trying to build a new cooperative working relationship between the UK and Scottish Governments, with power to make decisions spread out from Holyrood closer to our communities.
He knows from his experience leading Greater Manchester that this can bring good jobs and growth to every postcode, putting more money in people’s pockets, as well as reindustrialising places that have been let down in recent years.
This includes places like Fife, where the UK Government’s record investment in defence is supporting almost 4000 high-skilled, well-paid jobs, hopefully with more to come.
But Fifers will never be able to really take advantage of these jobs without the right skills to do them.
Last month, the Scottish Affairs Committee warned of “acute shortages” in skills like welding, fabrication and other shipbuilding-related occupations.
In March, the UK Government committed £10 million to two Scottish Defence Technical Excellence Colleges (DTECs), one in the East and one in the West, which will help to fix the bottleneck in the skills pipeline.
This funding relied on match-funding from the Scottish Government, who finally announced the match funding of £10 million last week, meaning the DTECs can go ahead.
There is no time to waste; shipyards like Rosyth and Methil not only provide good jobs and local growth, the workers there play a crucial role in maintaining our national security at a time of heightened geopolitical uncertainty.
I want Fife College to have the leading role in delivering the Defence Technical Excellence Colleges in the East of Scotland. This will support our next generation of defence workers - and it would be good for our town centre too.
Examples elsewhere in the UK show that defence skills training can play a role in regenerating high streets. Take Barrow, where the vacant Debenhams building is being repurposed to deliver training in ship construction.
In a town like Kirkcaldy, where more than one in four High Street units are vacant, new uses for empty shops is really needed.
If Fife College can refit one of these and use it to deliver skills training as part of a new Defence Technical Excellence College, that would be a boost to our High Street. More footfall would be good for existing town centre businesses.
That’s why I’ve raised this in the House of Commons and with the Defence Minister. I’ll keep pushing for opportunities like this to come to our Lang Toun.