Yorkshire devolution has ‘scarred’ Minister as Heseltine intervenes
Lord Heseltine’s intervention
A GOVERNMENT Minister claims she is carrying “scars” on her back because of past differences over Yorkshire devolution as political grandee Michael Heseltine called for an end to delays in shifting decision-making away from Westminster.
The frank admission by Baroness Williams of Trafford came as peers pressed the case for One
Yorkshire and a countywide leadership model.
The Tory peer, now a Home Office Minister after previously holding a communities brief, said Boris Johnson was taking steps to bring about “greater collaboration” and a devolution White Paper featured in the Queen’s Speech.
“I echo that and the bespoke ongoing discussions across Yorkshire to ensure the most appropriate arrangements,” she added. “I have the scars on my back from some of the earlier discussions in Yorkshire.”
Her comments came at the end of an impassioned debate that saw ex-Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine challenge the Government to recognise devolution will be even more important after Brexit. He called for a dedicated Cabinet Minister to be responsible for devolution to stop politicians favouring “pet” projects.
Lord Heseltine said: “I await the White Paper with such interest because I hope that the crisis of Brexit has highlighted the urgency of this matter. Brexit did not create the problem.
“Brexit merely highlights the scale of the challenge facing this country and indicates, as your Lordships have clearly done, that we need change to mobilise the country at local as well as national level to challenge these issues.
“Whitehall is its own power structure and totally divided on all these issues; each Minister has his own pet scheme. We need a Minister to grip Whitehall and force it into the devolution agenda.”
Noting that “boundaries of our existing mayoral authorities are a nonsense”, Lord Heseltine named Leeds as a priority – he later said that he favours “unitary counties” – and that mayors must have powers for education and skills so joined-up industrial policies can be created.
He also sought to reassure rural residents and businesses who fear that their areas are being marginalised. On the day that North Yorkshire’s Rural Commission meets for the first time, Lord Heseltine said: “If you want really to empower the countryside and enrich it, it must be enjoined with the wealthcreating centres that it surrounds.
“So, I very much hope that we will see a drive to unitary counties with mayors, not just the present compromises in the local government structure...I have a phrase written down: ‘Get the job done’. I say this to the Minister: ‘let us get the real job done’.”
Earlier Paul Scriven, a Lib Dem peer from Sheffield, told the Lords: “If we are serious about bringing our country together and dealing with the strains and issues that have caused Brexit, we need a different and more devolved way and better regional and local policies to do so.”
AS A former mayor of London, Boris Johnson clearly understands the potential of devolution far more than Theresa May did – hence the White Paper in a Queen’s Speech now on hold because of Brexit.
Yet, while there is acceptance, both here and in Whitehall, that Yorkshire’s devolution deadlock must not be allowed to fester any longer, all leaders should heed Michael Heseltine’s latest intervention.
A former Deputy Prime Minister who has spent the past four decades championing inner city regeneration after becoming Environment Secretary in 1979, he knows exactly how central government actually works in practice and, more tellingly, does not.
It is why he wants a Cabinet Minister specifically tasked with overseeing the transfer of powers to English local authorities – Lord Heseltine says Ministers spend too much time prioritising ‘pet’ schemes and that too much power rests with an overcentralised Treasury.
However, it is the passion with which this political grandee spoke in the House of Lords that will have wider resonance here. He is right when he says that elected mayors should control education and skills because this will be fundamental to the success, or otherwise, of local industrial strategies.
Tellingly, he also believes, as a new Rural Commission begins work in North Yorkshire, that countryside communities must not be viewed in isolation. “If you want really to empower the countryside and enrich it, it must be enjoined with the wealth-creating centres that it surrounds,” he advises.
And then there is Lord Heseltine’s urgency: “Let us get the real job done here.” Hard-hitting words spoken in the context of devolution, they also matter when it is estimated that a One Yorkshire devolution deal could be worth £30bn a year – an opportunity which this region, and country, cannot afford to spurn at a time of so much Brexit uncertainty.