Oral Answers to Questions

Emma Hardy Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Robert Jenrick]

My hon. Friend, who has campaigned on this issue for many years, speaks for the whole House. I will of course be signing the book. I am informed by the Leader of the House that there will be a debate in the House on or around Holocaust Memorial Day in the usual way. We must all continue to fight the cancer of antisemitism, in all its forms, on every occasion, and this Government will always do that.

[Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)]

T6. The Minister will know that when the north prospers the nation prospers, and a recent independent study showed that the One Yorkshire devolution project could bring £30 billion to our region’s economy, so will he finally allow us to bring power home by letting One Yorkshire devolution go ahead?

[Jake Berry]

I am sure that, like me, the hon. Lady is delighted that one of the first policy commitments of our new Prime Minister before the general election was to say that we should have devolution—mayoral at that—across the whole of the north of England, and I am delighted to report that we are not only proceeding well with negotiations in West Yorkshire but having good discussions with South Yorkshire—[Interruption.] The rest of Yorkshire is in discussions with us as well. [Interruption.] As I do not think the hon. Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) knows, given that he represents Brighton—though he is chuntering from a sedentary position about One Yorkshire—proposals have been submitted to the Government, but the area did not meet the requirement to having a coherent economic geography. I am pleased, however, that we are able to forge ahead with all forms of devolution in Yorkshire. What happens in Brighton we will have to wait and see.