Moving Lords to York is flawed – Blunkett

‘Vanity project’ will do little for North, says peer

PLANS TO relocate the House of Lords to Yorkshire have been dismissed by political grandee David Blunkett as a Boris Johnson “vanity project” that only pays lip service to the real economic needs of the North.

The Labour peer also accused the Prime Minister and the Government of trying to deceive voters of the North by believing – mistakenly – that potentially moving the Upper House to the York Central regeneration site will solve decades of regional inequalities.

And Liberal Democrat and Tory peers from Yorkshire also cast doubt on the proposal, claiming that reform of the Lords and the election of peers needs to take precedence, as the Conservatives consider the possibility of moving their campaign HQ out of London to an unnamed location in the North or Midlands.

Tory chairman James Cleverly confirmed that the future location of the Lords is being considered – not least because an alternative site for Parliament needs to be found while the Palace of Westminster undergoes a £3.5bn restoration over the coming decade.

“What we are looking at is a whole range of options about making sure every part of the UK feels properly connected from politics,” he said. “When the PM stood up the day after the election and said this is going to be the people’s government he meant it.

That meant connecting people with government and politics.”

But his comments were greeted with incredulity by Lord Blunkett, who held three senior posts in Tony Blair’s government, including Home Secretary, before accepting a peerage in 2015 shortly after he had stood down as the MP of Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.

“I can see no benefit – other than Ministers would not have to deal with peers on a daily basis,” Lord Blunkett told The Yorkshire Post last night.

“People don’t want gestures or vanity projects like this – they want real devolution, real decentralisation of power and a bottom-up approach to decisionmaking. Meaningless and silly gestures only add to the feeling that the Government doesn’t take the North seriously.”

Lord Blunkett, 72, accepted that the House of Lords needs to be reformed so that it becomes more representative of the whole country as Labour leadership contender Rebecca Long-Bailey presses for the institution to be turned into a House of Regions.

But Lord Blunkett said the prospect of Ministers and peers travelling on the East Coast Main Line to and from York in order to conduct Parliamentary business will make the government of the country more ineffectual.

“It would make no financial or logical sense. It would look like an act of silly spite, and from a Tory government rather than a Rebbeca Long-Bailey government. From a logical and practical point of view, it is a non-starter.”