It's a great privilege to be here today. I was born in Glasgow and I love this city like no other.
Glasgow has a great heritage. All of us will have our own lists of what we've given the world. We have been - and are -so many things.
By 1824 we were acknowledged as the Second City of the Empire. And that was just a thousand days after we overtook Edinburgh as Scotland's biggest city. Both great achievements. Though sometimes I'm not sure which we're proudest of.
This is a city that has always worked hard for its living.
We are makers. Manufacturing has been in our blood from the earliest days on the Clyde, to the Type 45s and the carriers.
We are thinkers and creators. Adam Smith. Lord Kelvin. Alasdair Gray. Mary Barbour. A.L. Kennedy. Alan McGee.
But above all we are shapers.
When we face a physical challenge we overcome it. This dear green place of ours became a transatlantic powerhouse because the city fathers made the Clyde faster and deeper so modern ships could come to the docks. The housing schemes that I grew up in - and that define Glasgow for so many - were a considered and (at the time) radical response to the worst housing in Europe.
And this is the key to Glasgow. This has been one of the richest and most successful cities in the world. Not by chance, but by choice. But at one and the same time it has been a site of enormous inequality.
Last year the National Gallery of Scotland showed many of the impressionist paintings that were collected by Glasgow merchants in the 19th century. They had an avant-garde taste. But it was funded by a wealth that was not fairly shared with their workers.
The tragedy of the last century was that for far too long Glasgow was falling behind other cities - both in Britain, and abroad. The achievement of the last 20 years has been to restore growth and prosperity, first under local leadership, then since 1997 with the support of a Labour government.
Today Glasgow - with just over 10% of Scotland's population generates one-sixth of Scottish GDP.
With a travel to work area of 2 million, this is the UK's most important retail centre outside London.
Old and new attractions make it the UK's fourth most popular tourist destination.
And a remarkable 80,000 Glasgow jobs were created in the decade after 1997, increasing the employment rate among adults resident in Glasgow by one-fifth - from 55% to 66%.
This city flourished first in the heyday of heavy industries. The Clyde was the superhighway that brought workers and raw material in, and shipped finished goods out.
And in today's interconnected world there are so many Glasgows. Scottish emigrants took the name of the "dear green place" with them. To much smaller Glasgows in Ontario and in six American states. [Kentucky, Montana, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Missouri] Communities that Glasgow gave both name and purpose to. But sadly it was in these very places in the American heartland, that reckless sub-prime mortgage lending precipitated last autumn's financial crisis and the worst world recession since the 1930s.
And we have a duty to look forward to the upturn and plan for recovery. In a city renowned for heavy industry we can now prosper in the weightless industries - from the creative sector to biosciences and modern manufacturing. It is knowledge that drives prosperity. Intellectual power is as important to the jobs of the future as steam power was to the Industrial Revolution.
Glasgow is investing in knowledge. This is a city with three universities, eight further education colleges and so many clever graduates. They are the brains behind the new business spin-outs and the high-tech start-ups.
We're set for an education dividend - the upside of the future when half of our people have been through university.
Glasgow is undergoing a real renaissance. But the danger is, that as in the past, the fruits of success are not equally shared. For hand in hand with a rapid expansion of access to higher and further education there has been a growing number of people who are persistently workless.
That's why as we anticipate Glasgow's future success we cannot tolerate simultaneous failure. And why we have to break the horrific cycle of inherited poverty.
Glasgow's statistics were bad in the past. In 1981, unemployment was 21%. Ten years later, one in three males between 16 and 49 were jobless. Levels of business formation were low.
Leading to generations lost to unemployment and a pervading benefits culture in too many families.
This Government takes a different approach. Our policies have saved around 7,000 jobs in Glasgow and have succeeded in getting nearly 500 people into work through the Future Jobs Fund.
And in the spirit of the consistently successful Team Scotland approach to this key issue, I can announce that the first ever Scottish Jobs Summit in will be held in Easterhouse on 11 January.
To make a lasting change to Glasgow we need to get people into work and keep them there. The human cost of unemployment is felt by each individual, each family, each community. But in the face of demographic change, deep-seated unemployment is economically just as costly. Some of you will know the appalling statistic that after two years on Incapacity Benefit, the average worker is more likely to die than to get a job. What few of you will know is that DWP estimate the true cost of someone living on Incapacity Benefit is a total of £62,000. (over 8 year period - average length of time someone is on IB)
Our priority has to be to guide people away from welfare dependency.
Overcoming a desperate poverty of aspiration which has gripped some families and parts of the community for too long. Work is the best form of welfare for people of working age - it is right to change the system that abandoned people onto benefit, it is right to challenge - and change - the lifestyle that embraces benefit dependency.
An active welfare state must be matched by men, women and young people actively embracing the opportunities we offer to make their way into work - and to earn their own living.
It's about tackling all the issues that prevent people getting into work - whether it's to do with health or skills or transport or financial incentives. With the key ingredient of local flexibility. Because we know that far too often those furthest from the labour market are the clients of a variety of arms of the welfare state, from the council to the NHS and JobCentrePlus.
We are committed to a fresh approach. The enduring values of Beveridge remain but the model is no longer ambitious enough. The concept of full employment for Beveridge was that of able bodied men. For us the aspiration of full employment in a global economy means much more than that. We want opportunities for all. For lone parents, people with disabilities and health conditions, older workers and ethnic minorities all to be able to fulfil their right to work.
In the past too many people have been written off in the labour market. We want to right that historic wrong.
It's encouraging a sense of progressive self interest. Which delivers dividends not only to the individual but to families, communities and the wider society.
I want Glasgow to pioneer flexible welfare. I want to see Glasgow having the most flexible welfare system in Britain. I want us to be welfare leaders and innovators. That's why I am pleased today to announce an up to a six month combined DWP, Glasgow City Council and Scotland Office study into welfare policy in this city to be chaired by Professor Pamela Gillies, Principal of Glasgow Caledonian University. She will be joined by Stuart Patrick, Chief Executive of the Glasgow Chambers of Commerce.
The study will examine the welfare challenges in Glasgow City and travel to work area, placing a close focus upon generational poverty and benefit reliance. It will consider the particular problems and potential welfare solutions in the City within a UK based benefit system.
We want there to be particular focus on disadvantaged groups An overriding theme will be the challenge of providing sustained employment. The Task Force will build on the City Strategy Partnership Group's work and examine whether additional flexibility in employment support could make a real step change towards their shared goals.
I don't think it's good enough that:
Nearly one in three households (with at least one person over 16) in Glasgow has no-one in employment. (60% more than Scottish average)
One in four children in Glasgow live in workless households. (80% more than Scottish average)
And one in four are in a revolving door - a quarter of Jobseeker allowance claimants are moving between temporary work and welfare.
This initiative comes at a difficult time, when the global recession is reversing some of the huge gains we've made in Glasgow. Our immediate actions last year have saved 50,000 jobs in Scotland - nearly half of them in the Glasgow travel to work area. And while all the talk is of impending recovery the recession has just started for some families who have just suffered a job loss. It's important to reflect how far we have come. We were on the brink of an unprecedented collapse and ATMs were hours away from running out of cash. And I'm certain of two things.
First, we can't afford to let the most disadvantaged fall behind again. That's morally wrong, socially wrong and economically wrong.
Second, I think that it is becoming clear where the opportunities are for another surge in employment in Glasgow.
Climate Change is the greatest medium-term threat facing us. But tackling it, and making a successful transition to a low-carbon economy offers Glasgow and its businesses a huge opportunity.
Glasgow has real advantages. In contrast to overseas metropolitan areas Glasgow is ahead of the game. It retains its downtown core - the hub for jobs and economic dynamism that is the city centre.
Many point to the abundance of brownfield sites and the fact that 10% of the city's land is vacant.
And Glasgow's compactness and proximity will be real assets as environmental considerations drive development. As the trend moves to recovering city cores and returning to cities so demand will increase for vacant land.
Land and resource use must change - so that the city's assets dovetail with opportunities in new, exciting ways. Today's derelict site is tomorrow's business opportunity.
Glasgow is already an energy centre. I know that the "dear green place" can become green energy Glasgow.
The down payment has been paid and the foundations laid.
From the alleviation of fuel poverty through the insulating of homes, to advanced green manufacturing and cutting-edge research.
My Cabinet colleague, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, forecasts an additional 400,000 green jobs in the UK by 2015. That's around 40,000 in Scotland. Based directly on population that would mean 4,000 more jobs for Glasgow. But Glasgow has always had greater ambitions.
And it's because of our record of success that today, working with the City Council, business, trade unions and others, I set a target for a further 10,000 green jobs in Glasgow by 2015.
So, a green future. And a fairer future.
If we make the right steps.
We fully realise that global change is accelerating and the competition out there is keener than ever before. We cannot shelter from globalisation. We need to embrace it rather than protect ourselves from it.
The statistics are startling. Glasgow - once the second city of the empire would only be the 136th largest city in China.
Scotland is turning out record numbers of graduates - around 80,000 annually. But China and India are producing more graduates in a year (8.3 million) than we will in a century. That's the scale and calibre of the competition we face.
I believe we're up for a challenge. We already have a city which is transforming itself into a knowledge-based economy. With a thriving services sector.
Glasgow is an engine of growth, a powerhouse of the national economy. Vital for our cultural and social well-being. With a key role to play in connecting Scotland with the wider world.
In the modern world successful cities are a hub, not a destination. Robust places. Defined by their character, natural assets and historic legacy. With a remarkable ability to negotiate the good and bad times and a talent for re-inventing themselves. And that's certainly true of Glasgow.
With the Commonwealth Games on the horizon. I know that Glasgow is more than ready for the changes the coming decades will bring.
I'm sure we all want to work together to ensure Glasgow's fantastic future. Let Glasgow flourish.