CHOPPY WATERS FOR A DEAL
With the rest of the region agreeing devolution deals to bring in funding and powers, is the Humber at risk of getting left behind? Political Editor Rob Parsons reports.
It appears to have been made without consulting key business stakeholders and short circuits a process that local MPs have been told would conclude this October. Diana Johnson MP, on Stephen Parnaby being appointed as Humber LEP chair.
SOME 40 miles long and eight wide at its mouth, the River Humber has been a major boundary for centuries, with the name Northumbria deriving from the Anglo-Saxon literally meaning ‘the people north of the Humber’.
More recently it has been a huge economic asset to the North, hosting the largest ports complex by tonnage in the country and ranked as the fourth largest trading estuary in Europe.
But getting political leaders either side of the river, with Hull and the East Riding to the north and two Lincolnshire authorities on the South Bank, to unite around a political vision for the area and its economic future has proven to be more complicated.
Humberside County Council, set up in 1974, was broken up and split into four two decades later. And this year, despite the efforts of Ministers to tie both sides of the river into a cross-Humber devolution deal, North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire went their own way.
The waters were muddied further by events at the Humber Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the body created to grow the area’s economy, with fury in some quarters at the decision to appoint a long-standing former council leader as its interim chairman for what could be the next three years.
It all means that as this crucial part of the Northern Powerhouse enters the post-coronavirus and post-Brexit world, questions remain over who will take the decisions about how best to take advantage of its natural assets.
Angry accusations about the LEP burst into the open when it emerged that Lord Chris Haskins, who had held the chairmanship since its creation in 2011, would be replaced by his deputy Stephen Parnaby.
Mr Parnaby, Yorkshire’s longestserving town hall leader until stepping down from East Riding of Yorkshire Council last year, was among three candidates interviewed earlier in the year to replace Lord Haskins but not appointed.
In what was described as a ‘grubby fix’ by the Hull Chamber of Commerce, a claim denied by LEP bosses, he was later announced as interim chairman for the next “two or three years” while the new political and economic set-up either side of the Humber is agreed.
The matter was taken up by Hull North MP Diana Johnson, who in a letter to Minister Simon Clarke questioned why the LEP and its multimillion pound regeneration budget was to be led by a former politician rather than someone from the business community.
Labour MP Dame Diana wrote that the appointment “appears to have been made without consulting key business stakeholders and short-circuits a process that local MPs have been told would conclude this October”.
She suggested that it fell short of the Nolan principles which are the basis of the ethical standards expected of public office holders. Her letter concluded: “Unless these concerns are addressed, I fear that there will be a lack of confidence in the Humber LEP.”
Mike Whitehead, vice president of the Hull and Humber Chamber of Commerce and one of the other interviewed candidates to replace Lord Haskins, asked Mr Clarke in a separate letter “to consider establishing an independent investigation into whether there has been malfeasance involved”. But in his response, the Conservative Minister defended the decision. He added: “My most senior official in Yorkshire and Humber attended the Board as an observer, and reported that everything was done openly, transparently and in line with good corporate governance.”
Speaking from his home in Skidby in the Yorkshire Wolds, Lord Haskins insists that the interim appointment of Mr Parnaby made sense because there were no other suitable candidates and the uncertainty around the future of the LEP made it unlikely any others would come forward.
“It is quite logical in a situation like that if the chairman wants to go, I’m way over my time, I should have gone three or four years ago, the logical thing for the board to do would be to step the deputy chairman up in his place.”
He adds: “{The LEP board] asked me to stay on, I thought about it and said I’m not going to do this, I’m 83 and I’m slightly fed up with the local politics.”
With the Government unwilling to intervene Mr Parnaby, who is also the business development director at local company Wren Kitchens, is now in a position to lead the LEP until 2022 or 2023, putting him in a powerful position to decide where economic growth funding goes.
At this point, the Humber’s political arrangement will likely break into two after the two northern Lincolnshire authorities signalled earlier this year that they wanted to join a devolution arrangement with the rest of their historic county to the south.
In his letter Mr Clarke admitted this was not the Government’s preferred outcome, and that a cross-Humber power structure would be better.
The turning point in the process was the 2019 General Election, where Labour MPs for Grimsby and Scunthorpe were voted out in favour of Tories who view links with the rest of Lincolnshire as more important than those across the river. Many in northern Lincolnshire still remember Humberside County Council and the perception that decision-making mostly benefited the North Bank.
A proposed combined authority for Hull and the East Riding alone, potentially taking the funding that currently goes to the LEP, is what remains and talks are at an early stage over what this could look like.
The Government wants to fast-track the process, hopefully also creating a cross-Humber structure which allows the four authorities to work together. Talks are at an early stage and whatever is created will lack the clout of bigger authorities like West Yorkshire because of its relatively small population.
The Yorkshire Post understands that even the creation of an elected metro mayor, a prerequisite for other devolution deals, is not guaranteed and local leaders would need to get an attractive deal before they agree.
Henri Murison, Director of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership representing business and civic leaders, argues that the Humber is a vital part of the economy of the North.
He said: “The ports, including Immingham and Hull across the river from each other, have the potential for what the next phase of offshore wind could mean, with opportunities for energy storage, manufacturing and large scale assembly, while train manufacturing at Goole by Siemens and Carbon Capture Use and Storage using Drax’s expertise to create negative emissions electricity to reduce the wider carbon impact of the Humber industrial base.
“No deal with Lincolnshire as a county should be permitted without a committee of the two new Metro Mayors and Industry, North and South of the river, locking in the legacy of Lord Haskins in making a case for what is still the most coherent economic geography for building growth.”