‘It’s time to abandon dream of mayor for Yorkshire’
ONE OF the chief architects of the Northern Powerhouse has said the prospect of a Yorkshire-wide mayor needs to be abandoned if progress is to be made on securing devolved Government to the region.
Lord O’Neill, a former Treasury minister and Goldman Sachs economist who now serves on the board of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said continued speculation regarding shifting away from city region deals towards a pan-regional approach were proving counterproductive to securing terms for a devolution settlement and would have little support from Government.
In the second half of an exclusive interview with
Lord O’Neill hailed the example of former John Lewis boss-turned-Conservative-politician Andy Street, saying a figurehead of his nature was required to drive through a deal in Yorkshire.
Lord O’Neill said he had seen first hand how the pan-Yorkshire approach was proving a distraction from getting a settlement for the rest of the region.
“The idea of a Yorkshire-wide mayor does not make economic sense and it doesn’t make practical sense either. I know from my time in discussions with these people they have easily backed off because they have got sucked into the idea of this idea of a Yorkshire mayor but it is just not practical and it is not going to ever happen.”
When asked what could be done to drive through devolution in Yorkshire, Lord O’Neill said the answer lay in leadership and pointed to the example how the West Midlands area was able to come together despite broadly comparable geographical and political incompatibilities.
“I take my hat off to Andy Street,” he said.
“If it would not have been for Andy personally there would never have been a West Midlands combined authority and certainly the case for a mayoral position would not have happened. Not only did he do all of that but then he gave up his position of chief executive of what is generally regarded as a top British company to risk becoming the mayor. So my answer is where are the Andy Streets in this part of the world? A lot of West Midlands councils had at least as many of the issues. It was complex there but they dealt with and are moving forward.
“So where are the people who are prepared to take themselves into a different position, take some risk and are prepared to really step forward more strongly and say ‘this is why this should happen and this is how we are going to drive it?’.”