Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well done.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (James Brokenshire)]

Last Wednesday, I joined the New Zealand high commissioner and other hon. Members to remember victims of the Christchurch mosque attack, reaffirming our solidarity with our Muslim brothers and sisters. As in New Zealand, our diverse communities make us stronger. That is why we will always stand up against hatred, bigotry and extremism. It is also why I have reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to the holocaust memorial and learning centre next door to Parliament. I met holocaust survivors last week to set out more details of the plan for that.

On a very different note, the issue of tree netting on development sites and its impact on wild birds has caused concern across the House. That is why I have written to developers today to underline their responsibilities to protect wildlife and to ensure that netting is kept to an absolute minimum.

[John Grogan]

May I associate myself with the Secretary of State’s remarks about New Zealand? We had a similar remembrance event in Keighley only yesterday.

Will the Secretary of State carefully consider the compromise proposals for Yorkshire devolution, as put forward by the mayor of South Yorkshire, for the period to 2022? Will he also consider the request from the councils in the Leeds city region to extend their devolution deals for that period?

[James Brokenshire]

I will look and am looking carefully at the submissions that have been made. I want to see greater devolution across Yorkshire. I recognise Yorkshire’s ambition to have those powers transferred down and I look forward to continuing discussions with the hon. Gentleman and others on how best that can be advanced.

East Coast Main Line Investment

John Grogan Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I had not intended to speak, Mr Owen, but I am inspired by the speeches and by the mover of the motion, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell). She spoke with great passion and clarity about how much the line means to our national economy, our culture and our society.

It thrills the blood to be on an east coast main line train and to arrive, for example, at the tremendous station in the great historic city of York on race day, or at Leeds—I am sitting next to my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel)—with its shops and culture and its new cathedral of a station, with lots of investment to come. It will uniquely house the main line station, HS2 and HS3 as well. It will perhaps be the premier station in the whole of the country when that happens.

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn). Regardless of the ideology of privatisation, the line has had a sorry history. GNER, National Express and Virgin-Stagecoach all failed, despite the amount of money that went into the franchises and despite the lawyers. Then they were taken back. I have a few questions for the Minister, and just an appeal, really.

[Lilian Greenwood]

Before my hon. Friend goes on to ask questions, does he agree with me that it is important to remember that today is the anniversary of the accident at Hatfield, which occurred when the infrastructure was privatised under Railtrack? As a result of that accident, the infrastructure was brought back into the public sector under Network Rail. Should we not remember that on 17 October 2000, four people lost their lives and 70 were injured? We saw then the dangers of putting ideology and profits ahead of running a safe railway.

[John Grogan]

We should certainly remember that anniversary. Regardless of ideology, one achievement of Network Rail over the intervening period, under all parties, has been to put a much higher emphasis on safety on our railways, and we should never lose that again.

On my questions for the Minister, is there not a strong case for a period of stability on the east coast main line? As we have heard, we have a promise of some investment from the Government, but we really need a period of stability so that people know where they stand. Ministers have mentioned the east coast partnership, but have given very little detail. We have no idea who will be involved in that partnership. Will Network Rail be involved? Will it be a privatised operator?

For the period of this Parliament, should it last until 2022, it would be welcome if the Government were to say that the service will be run as it is now: a directly run state-operated company with Network Rail. The Minister should be very cautious about disrupting the system yet again. There are other operators on the east coast main line who write to me to ask whether they will be involved in the partnership; there are other franchisees and open-access operators and so on.

Civil servants might put the next possible option in front of the Minister when the best possible option is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow mentioned, what happened in the period between 2009 and 2015. During that sustained period, the line was run for public service in the public sector. The stats went up, reliability went up and £1 billion was paid into the public coffers. The line could be a public sector comparator. From the Government’s point of view, it would be a good thing over the next five years to look at evidence-based policy.

We have heard a little about extra trains to Harrogate and Lincoln. Are they happening or not? Extra trains to Middlesbrough were promised. Seven a day to Bradford from next May were promised. Will those trains definitely run? Can I put in my diary for 1 May next year that I shall be there watching as seven trains from Bradford, rather than the one, go on that line?

Can the Minister tell us a little more about the Azuma trains? We have heard about the problems of electromagnetic interference with signals—it sounds like science fiction. Are Ministers getting a grip of that? When will that problem be solved? Will the Minister be able to say a little more on that this side of Christmas or in the new year?

I do not want to speak for long, but I want to say that the Labour party looks forward to government. We look forward to the main franchisee, the east coast main line, being run in the public sector with Network Rail, with all the co-ordination and efficiency that that will bring. From time to time, I raise the question of open-access operators with shadow Ministers, because there are open-access operators on the east coast main line. Hull Trains and Grand Central have re-linked towns such as Halifax to the east coast main line, and First is planning to bring in an open-access operator in 2021 to Edinburgh.

We can afford to be magnanimous as a new Labour Government. We should also recognise that just as the BBC is a great public service broadcaster but benefits from challenge from Channel 4 and the commercial sector, at the margin we should be confident in our belief in public sector efficiency, and still allow challenge in a 98% or 99% publicly owned sector.

I used to represent Selby, where Hull Trains identified a gap in the market and provided a service. A big national operator will not always be quite as fleet of foot as we might want. In thinking about how to change the railways we must give more of a role to local authorities, for example. However, there should not just be one decision maker in Whitehall deciding on routes. I hope for assurances on that matter from the Labour Front Bench.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Increasing Choice for Rail Passengers

John Grogan Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I stand corrected and admonished, Mrs Moon. The quality of the debate inspired me to make a contribution.

I consider myself to be a democratic socialist and also a great believer in competition, and I do not necessarily see a contradiction between the two. One good thing that came from the Railways Act 1993 and the privatisation of the railways was the creation of open access operators. I could not say that it was a bad thing, because I used to be the Member for Selby, which previously had no direct rail link to the great city of London. As we have already heard, Hull Trains established itself as the pioneer of open access. It initially ran, I think, four journeys a day to London; it is many more now. In terms of the links between Selby and the world, seeing that direct link from London King’s Cross to Doncaster and then to Selby and to Hull was like having, to reference an earlier debate, a second division football team, in the effect it had on the town’s attractiveness.

The hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) is absolutely right: those who have always opposed open access operators are Governments of both colours, who have never made it easy for the operators—I think the current Government are looking at it afresh—and the franchise holders. I am delighted that the excellent shadow rail Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), is here. The citizens of York benefit from Grand Central train services. I remember, under a Labour Government, going to the Office of the Rail Regulator and saying, “This is your chance to be heroes.” Everyone said that the rail regulator could not possibly find a path on the railway for that Grand Central service, but it stood up and said that there was space, and we therefore had Grand Central services.

I understand that, from 2021, there will be a service on the east coast main line to Scotland from London, calling at Morpeth, promising £25 fares to Edinburgh. Some lines are easier to run open access services on than others, for a variety of reasons, and even though only 3% of services across the country are run by open access operators, the east coast main line has benefited from that price competition. Any dominant provider—to be honest, it does not matter whether state or private—will become complacent and find it hard to innovate. That is as true of the current franchise holders as it was of British Rail. I fully support the Labour party’s policy of taking that franchise back into public ownership, because I am a great believer in a mixed economy. There was a moment under a Conservative Government when the state provided services on the east coast main line, and consumer satisfaction was high, but the open access providers pressed it and kept it honest.

I say gently to my party, as we develop our policy, that it may not be popular. If at the next election it looks as though we are about to form a Government, my constituents will ask whether the policy will mean the end of the Grand Central service from Bradford to London, and people in Selby will ask whether it will mean the end of the Hull Trains service to London. I hope the answer to those questions will be no. With those remarks, I sit down, admonished.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The public health grant is not being ended; it is being folded into the business rates retention plan that the local government sector has welcomed and agreed for that process. Also, a new funding formula is being worked out with the Department of Health and Social Care specifically for public health, and I am sure we will welcome the hon. Lady’s contributions to that.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

Has the Secretary of State yet personally had the chance to consider the important matter of Yorkshire devolution, and will he agree to meet the Yorkshire leaders from all parties before Yorkshire Day on 1 August—the Secretary of State personally?

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

We don’t want it.

Oral Answers to Questions

John Grogan Excerpts

Monday 30th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I will. Andy Street and the West Midlands combined authority have been pivotal to the success of the midlands engine. The number of businesses in the west midlands has increased by 9% since 2016, and its second devolution deal includes a £53 million allocation to prepare land and deliver jobs and housing throughout the Black country, including my hon. Friend’s constituency.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

4. What assessment he has made of the potential merits of the proposal from 18 Yorkshire councils for a One Yorkshire devolution settlement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government (Jake Berry)]

Last month, high-level proposals were received from some councils in Yorkshire about the so-called One Yorkshire devolution deal. We are considering those proposals carefully and will respond to the authorities in due course.

[John Grogan]

Does the Minister accept that it is now the settled will of the vast majority of councils in Yorkshire, and the vast majority of the people there, that we move towards a One Yorkshire devolution settlement, and will he encourage the new Secretary of State to initiate talks with the Yorkshire councils so that he will be ever remembered as the man who delivered the first elected mayor to the white rose county?

[Jake Berry]

The hon. Gentleman is something of a Mystic Meg of the Labour party. Unlike him, I want the people of South Yorkshire to have their say in the elections next Thursday. The Conservative candidate, Ian Walker, has said:

“This is a golden opportunity to show what South Yorkshire can do.”

The Labour candidate thinks that it should be a part-time job, and the Labour authorities are fighting with each other so much that they cannot agree on what power or money the mayor of South Yorkshire should have.

Integrated Communities

John Grogan Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

Yes, I can give the hon. Lady that assurance. First, let me apologise. It is completely unacceptable and wrong if she only got one hour’s notice of my visit this morning. I was hoping to see her there, but I now know why that was not possible. I assure her that I was very impressed by what I saw at the Queens Road learning centre, where I met the council leaders responsible for the programme. I would like to see more of that activity across the country, not just in Waltham Forest and the pilot areas. She is right about helping people to put down roots and learn from other members of their community. As an example, as well as the ESOL classes I saw at the Queens Road learning centre, there was a group called “community chat”, which is designed to help people not just to learn English, but to make friends and make them more comfortable in their local community.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

As an MP for Bradford, I enthusiastically welcome this statement. I invite the Secretary of State to Keighley, which is the jewel in the crown of Bradford, to view progress at a later date. A day’s notice will be fine. Does he agree that it is particularly important that parents in Keighley and Bradford can speak English, so that they can guide their children at school and in their choice of friends, careers and so on? Does he also agree that is important that churches and mosques that quite rightly promote the value of family life get behind this promotion of English teaching?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call Anna Soubry.

Housing, Planning and the Green Belt

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention, and I welcome her support.

Guidance on the provision of affordable housing requires councils to assess the need based on local circumstances, but such housing is not being delivered in practice. The housing White Paper outlines that that the Government intend to amend the policy framework to introduce a clear policy expectation that housing sites deliver a minimum of 10% affordable homes, but that is not sufficient to address the issues that the planning system is failing to sort out, particularly for first-time buyers. As I see it, it will still be producing the wrong types of housing—perhaps large three-bedroom houses, but also four and five-bedroom houses—when many areas, including my own, need affordable two-bedroom houses. Such homes are more likely to be within the price range of younger people, thereby addressing the problem that the Government identified in the first place: a fall in ownership among young people.

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

In support of the hon. Gentleman’s argument, does he think it significant that the Campaign to Protect Rural England estimates that just over 10% of all the houses built on the green belt since 2009 are actually affordable?

[Mr Robertson]

I was not aware of that figure, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention.

I was speaking about home ownership among young people, but the provision of two-bedroom houses would also help older people who are perhaps looking to downsize after retirement, which would free up larger houses. Yet that is not happening at the moment.

Public Transport: Boxing Day 2018

John Grogan Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered public transport on Boxing Day 2018.

Christmas 2017 is already a distant memory for most of us, with all the joys of Christmas and some of the minor irritations such as our football team losing, which happened to me in the case of Bradford City, or the turkey going in slightly late, which happened at my family gathering. But there were also other irritations, such as the absence of Boxing day rail transport in our country.

In my campaigns on this—I have represented various marginal constituencies in Yorkshire for about 15 years—I have always made the mistake of trying to draw attention to it in the month of December. People are concerned at that point and are making their travel plans. Social media on 26 December is full of people realising they cannot get out and do what they wanted to do. I thought I would try a different tactic this year and draw attention to the issue before January ebbs away, so that we can begin to make plans for Boxing day 2018. There is hope, particularly in the north of England, in God’s own county of Yorkshire, that this year there may be the first trains running on Boxing day since 1980.

Why on earth does that matter, and why is it worth the attention of the House? There are three or four reasons. I was very pleased last week to see the Prime Minister appoint a Minister for Loneliness. A 60-hour shutdown for our major national rail network is just too long. For people who are isolated over that period, getting out and about is massively important. I have referred to Bradford City’s home fixture this year, but football fans up and down the land look forward to the Boxing day fixtures. There are great horse-racing meetings—the King George VI Chase at Kempton grabs the attention of at least part of the nation—various rugby matches and so on, and people should not need a car to attend those events. In an age when the environment matters, that is even more important.

There is also retail activity on Boxing day. For many of our shopping centres, both in town and out of town, it is an important trading day. This year, a lot of retailers experienced declines in sales on Boxing day. It does not help if people cannot get to the shops and the sales to spend their money. There are a number of reasons. Quite frankly, a lot of people have to be back at work at their desks, in their offices or in their restaurants on 27 December if not on 26 December. They cannot travel any distance to go home for Christmas if they have to be back at work on 27 December at eight o’clock in the morning. It affects people’s family Christmases.

Is there demand? I think there is. I draw attention to bus transport, since this debate is titled “Public Transport” and not just “Railways”. In London, I understand that buses have run on Boxing day for many decades, but outside London, the various big conurbations and cities across England have experimented over the last 10 or 15 years with running not a full service, but a service aimed at the shopping centres, football matches and so on. They have done that with some success.

Since 2007 in west Yorkshire, my area, the passenger transport authority, which has subsequently become the combined authority, has been running a service initially based in Leeds and Wakefield—it reached my Keighley constituency in the last three years. It is very well patronised. They have had to put extra buses on between Leeds and Bradford, because in some years they were completely full. There is an element of subsidy involved in west Yorkshire, but I was told that 65,000 passengers went on west Yorkshire buses on Boxing day 2016. They have not yet got the figures for 2017, but the experiment has worked well.

I had a letter from Mike Scott, the head of buses at Nexus, the passenger transport element of the combined authority in the north-east of England. He said that several of the bus services that it initially subsidised

“are now provided by commercial operators at no cost”,

because as people have got used to seeing public transport on Boxing day, they have used it more. Others, such as the Metro centre and Newcastle United, have on occasion subsidised buses because they see their commercial interest in getting people into Newcastle and letting them get home from football matches.

It has worked in the case of buses, but we have not seen a comprehensive train service on Boxing day in our country since 1980. In 1975, under the then Labour Government, the service began to ebb away. In 1975, no provision was made, but it came back in 1976. Members at the time raised concerns about the effect on people without access to a car who had to work on Boxing day, or who would not be able to visit friends and family. It was interesting that in reply, the then Minister Gordon Oakes commented:

“I believe it is essential that in our debate today we should not give the impression that there will be no public transport on Boxing Day. On the contrary, London Transport will run both its underground and bus services on 26th December.”—[Official Report, 21 November 1975; Vol. 901, c. 456.]

The emphasis is: if it is okay in London and London is all right, the rest of the country can make do.

It is interesting that, once the rail was privatised, the great airports of Heathrow and Gatwick had it put in their franchises that they should have a service on Boxing day, no doubt under the influence of London-based civil servants. Those were the only franchises in which that was specified. Of course, it is important that the great airports are connected on Boxing day, but there is also a great airport at Manchester in the north of England—Boxing day is its busiest day of the year. I will offer some hope before the end of my remarks, but until now there has been no service there.

Most of the time since 1980 outside Heathrow, Gatwick and Scotland, which has run a service as it is not a public holiday on Boxing day, there has been very little provision. There have been some services between Marylebone and Oxford on the Chiltern lines in recent years, which I think have been well used, but 90%-odd of the network has been closed down. It is interesting that no one in the rest of Europe closes down their network for that length of time. I am not suggesting services on Christmas day, but a lot of continental Europe runs a Sunday service throughout the holiday period. Somehow, they seem to get round the problem of engineering works. Where there is a will, there is a way.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[John Grogan]

It gives me great pleasure to give way to the chair of the all-party rail group, no less.

[Martin Vickers]

It is in that capacity that I wanted to say that the hon. Gentleman is very welcome to come along to the group next time we have a meeting of the train operating companies to put the question directly to them. At the moment, unless it is in their franchise, very few of them provide a service. They ought to be more enterprising—we need more competition in the rail network.

[John Grogan]

I accept that the spirit of enterprise should be there, and I have some good news for the hon. Gentleman before I sit down. I will certainly take up his invitation—it will be one of the highlights of my parliamentary year to come to such an august body.

I do not want to adopt a particularly party political approach, but I would make a gentle reflection to both Front Benchers—it is a great pleasure to see the shadow Minister for Rail, my fellow Yorkshire MP and hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell) in the debate, and I am glad she is taking an interest. There has been a tendency, as we might expect, that when parties are in opposition, they draw attention to this problem. I spoke to the office of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond) earlier today and pointed out that I would gently draw attention to his quote from 2008, where he said:

“Thousands of families travel the length and breadth of the country to visit relatives and loved ones on Boxing Day. But yet again this year the railways will grind to a halt, forcing people onto gridlocked motorways… Labour just do not get how important the railway is to people at Christmas-time.”

My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) has rightly mentioned that quote every Boxing day since he has been in office, and rightly asks for progress. However, I have not yet seen either Front-Bench team say that we definitely will make progress. However the railways are owned, and whether or not the major franchises come back into public ownership under a Labour Government, I hope a commitment can be made to Boxing day transport. I hope both parties can commit themselves to that.

I said there was potential good news for Boxing day 2018. That is largely concentrated in the north of England. For the past three years, Merseyrail has run a service. That shows the power of devolution. Merseyrail has a particularly close relationship with the Mayor of Liverpool and the councils on Merseyside, which have a greater consultative role in relation to the terms of the franchise and so on.

[Douglas Ross (Moray) (Con)]

I am interested in this issue, coming from a Scottish perspective. As the hon. Gentleman mentioned, there are some services on Boxing day in Scotland, but I get many complaints from my Moray constituents, including this year, that the service and the number of carriages are so reduced that the passenger’s experience is not great. Even though we have a service, it is very limited, with very few carriages, and ScotRail does a lot of maintenance on the railways on Boxing day because of the limited services, so there are many delays. Although there is devolution and there are some services in Scotland and other parts of the country on Boxing day, does the hon. Gentleman agree that those should be better services to ensure that people who choose to use the railways on Boxing day have a good experience?

[Ms Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)]

Order. That is a speech. I call John Grogan.

[John Grogan]

I agree with the hon. Member for Moray (Douglas Ross). We have to provide a quality service such that people know when the trains are running and that they will be of good quality. We cannot run a ramshackle service, because people will not use it. My worry would be that someone would say, “Why are we running these services at all?” as happened south of the border in 1980.

As I said, Merseyrail has been running services. This year, it was very enterprising, to use the word of the chair of the all-party rail group. It contacted Liverpool football club, which had an evening kick-off at 5.30 pm, and provided trains well into the evening so that supporters could not only get to the game, but get back afterwards. Northern Rail, for some reason—I am not sure how this came to be the case and whether it was down to an enlightened Minister or an enlightened civil servant—has to provide under the terms of its franchise 60 services in the north of England on Boxing day 2018. I am very hopeful that some of those may even go to Keighley, because I have had a very helpful letter from the chair of the West Yorkshire combined authority, Councillor Keith Wakefield. He says that it is working with the Department for Transport and Transport for the North, perhaps to enhance the 60 services and have more. The letter states:

“The consultation response submitted by WYCA noted that the Leeds North-West network (the Airedale and Wharfedale lines) were identified as a likely priority for Boxing Day services in the Leeds City region, not least reflecting the high levels of demand they attract at weekends/holidays and reflecting the extent to which the signalling is automated (which could reduce costs).”

If Bradford City are at home this year, I will look forward, possibly, to getting on to my local train service, on the Airedale or Wharfedale line, to get to the match.

In this more optimistic picture, TransPennine rail has an obligation in its franchise to make proposals to Ministers and to Transport for the North to run services across the Pennines. I understand that it has emphasised making proposals for the aforementioned Manchester airport, and that that is with Ministers and Transport for the North. I very much hope Ministers take an enlightened approach. I well remember a meeting about this in 2009 with Lord Adonis, marvellous man that he is, but I think that he rather humoured me and his mind was on High Speed 2 and very important projects such as that. These are little details, but I feel confident that this Minister is a man of such detail.

[Martin Vickers]

On the subject of TransPennine, which provides the main services via the south trans-Pennine route between Manchester airport and Cleethorpes, when the Minister has those discussions, will he make special mention of the fact not only that my constituents want to get to Manchester airport, but that of course people will flock in their thousands to Cleethorpes, where Grimsby Town will probably be playing at home next Boxing day?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Grogan]

They will, and the seaside in winter is particularly attractive.

I end by saying that I have every hope that both Front-Bench teams will get behind the idea of Boxing day transport. Devolution will help. This is one way of ensuring that the northern powerhouse in particular—obviously, I am concerned for the rest of the country as well—is powered for one extra day a year.

Yorkshire Devolution

John Grogan Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Grogan (Keighley) (Lab)]

I am looking at the occupants of the two Front Benches, and never have two proud sons of Lancashire had more opportunity to do something for God’s own county.

I have three very quick points. The letter from the Secretary of State before Christmas was very significant, because for the first time the phrase “one Yorkshire devolution” was used in a ministerial letter. I have some questions about that concept. First, the letter talked about all other councils in Yorkshire agreeing an all-Yorkshire settlement. Does that mean that every council, including Wakefield, has to agree to it?

Secondly, why cannot talks on those proposals start now? In December, the press spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said that so long as there is an agreed proposal, talks can begin. Will the Minister confirm, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) suggested, that talks can begin immediately in January so we can have a settlement long before the Tour de Yorkshire in May?

Finally, will the Minister confirm that it is policy to schedule all mayoral elections across the country in 2020? If so, an all-Yorkshire election in 2020 would fit in very nicely with that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jake Berry]

I encourage conversations to continue across Yorkshire. One of the key point of the compromise proposed by the Government before Christmas to the four local authorities currently in the South Yorkshire deal was that it did not preclude in any way Yorkshire authorities coming together and discussing what a future Yorkshire devolution deal might look like.

[John Grogan]

rose—

[Jake Berry]

I want to deal with the comments of the hon. Member for Keighley (John Grogan), so if I take his intervention now, I will not have time to deal with them. He asked whether the “one Yorkshire” deal means one Yorkshire. The proposal set out by the Secretary of State clearly states that a “one Yorkshire” deal would include all Yorkshire authorities. It is ultimately for the authorities in Yorkshire to go away, negotiate and to try to seek a consensus across Yorkshire about whether that deal can be done. All devolution settlements are made on a ground up basis. If the Yorkshire authorities can reach a consensus, “one Yorkshire” will mean one Yorkshire.

The hon. Gentleman also asked when talks can begin. It is not for the Government to dictate when talks can take place between any authorities in Yorkshire. It is up to those authorities.

[John Grogan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Jake Berry]

I am sorry; I do not have time. Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked whether it is the Government’s intention that all elections for mayoral combined authorities take place in 2020. The answer to that is no.