Minister to finally see council leaders on devolution

Dynamics of devolution debate

YORKSHIRE COUNCIL leaders will present their plan for a region-wide devolution deal to Communities Secretary Sajid Javid at a long-awaited meeting next month.

Mr Javid has agreed to meet the All Party Parliamentary Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire Group in the Commons at 4pm on February 27.

All council leaders, MPs and peers who represent the region will be invited together with businesses, trade union and religious leaders. Keighley MP John Grogan described the meeting as “very significant” and added: “The plan for All Yorkshire Devolution, now backed by 18 councils, will be presented to the Minister and we eagerly await his response.”

The Yorkshire Party this week became the first party to announce who its candidate would be for the Sheffield City Region mayoral election in May.

Father-of-two Mick Bower was first selected in October 2016, when it was expected the election would take place the following year. But since then Doncaster and Barnsley councils have pulled out of the devolution agreement reached in 2015, meaning the mayor will have virtually no new powers or the £900m promised at the time. Three people have put themselves forward to be Labour’s candidate, Barnsley MP Dan Jarvis, former Sports Minister and Sheffield MP Richard Caborn and Sheffield councillor Ben Curran.

Members of local Labour groups and trade unions now have until February 16 to nominate one of the long-listed hopefuls, at which point a shortlist will be drawn up by party officials.

Ballot papers will then be sent out to all eligible party members in South Yorkshire on a one-member, one-vote basis, before the winning candidate is announced on March 23.

THE DECISION of a national politician of the stature of Dan Jarvis to bid to become Sheffield City Region’s first mayor is already changing the dynamics of the campaign.

The Barnsley Central MP’s candidature as he seeks the Labour Party’s nomination has already seen the focus of the debate shift, as he intended, onto the issue of Yorkshire devolution.

This is important. Given that Sheffield Council has been the most resistant to the One Yorkshire proposition, followed, to a lesser extent by Rotherham, the mayoral vote promises to be a key test of public opinion after Doncaster and Barnsley voters backed countywide devolution in a referendum in December.

As Mr Jarvis looks to win the trust of Labour activists in Sheffield, and then voters if he is adopted, all those concerned need to remember this – the future fortunes of South Yorkshire are linked to the dynamism of the rest of the county and vice-versa. Recognition of this does, however, represent a breakthrough.