Devolution agreement with metro mayor ‘may be negotiated by March’
A DEVOLUTION deal creating a powerful metro mayor for West Yorkshire could be done by March after local leaders and Government Ministers agreed to start formal negotiations.
West Yorkshire council leaders met yesterday with Exchequer Secretary Simon Clarke and Northern Powerhouse Minister Jake Berry in Leeds in what was described as “a genuinely collegiate and productive meeting”.
When the meeting finished they confirmed that the Government had “now fired the starting gun on formal devolution negotiations in West Yorkshire”.
Mr Berry said: “We will now work our socks off over the coming weeks with a view to agreeing a deal in time for the Budget in March. While positive progress is being made in West Yorkshire and Sheffield City Region, I will also ensure that no area in the Northern Powerhouse is left behind in the dash for devolution.”
The progress made at yesterday’s meeting at the headquarters of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority could bring an end to the long-running devolution saga in the county.
While areas such as Greater Manchester, Liverpool and the Tees Valley have all secured deals which have seen powers and hundreds of millions of pounds handed over, West Yorkshire leaders have not been able to secure agreement with Ministers.
TOWNS AND rural areas in England must benefit from the next wave of devolution alongside cities, according to a thinktank.
A poll for the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) reveals that a majority of people in England want greater local decision-making, with 54 per cent of people backing a metro mayor.
The RSA says two-thirds of English people live in areas without an elected metro mayor, but a lack of agreement between central and local government means rural areas, towns and smaller cities in England risk being left behind.
But the thinktank says Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling-up’ agenda should not mean Britain’s big cities stand still and leaders need to be handed the kind of powers exercised in London and rival cities overseas.
The poll is launched at the Innovating Local Democracy Conference being hosted by the RSA at the People’s History Museum in Manchester. It suggests that councils must do more to engage residents in innovative ways.