West Yorkshire Combined Authority (Election of Mayor and Functions) Order 2021

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Tuesday 26th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, in three minutes, I can touch on only one or two key issues. I welcome the order and the elevation of the leader of Leeds City Council, Judith Blake, to this House. I know that she will make a great contribution.

In winding up, could the Minister touch on when we might have the long-promised White Paper on devolution? How might it deal with the inconsistencies and incoherence of having different powers for different city regions and their mayors; the creation of powers for mayors to have the police and crime commissioner function in some areas but not in others; and the way in which the resources he referred to, combined as they were in the Autumn Statement, have been cut and the structural funds originally available from the European Union have disappeared? They now look more like the towns fund, which became a slush fund for individual Members of Parliament. How might that be avoided in these circumstances?

I want to touch particularly on the importance of Yorkshire getting its act together to collaborate, have its voice heard and ensure that it is not discriminated against as it has been so blatantly in recent years. If the Sheffield City Region—I hope that it will stop arguing about the name—and the newly created West Yorkshire mayoral authority, together with the leaders in the remainder of Yorkshire, can combine as they have done in the last few days with those in the East Midlands to make their voices heard on the HS2 scandal, some good will certainly have come out of this. Others will mention HS2; it is interesting that the briefing from HS2 always refers to the Crewe and Manchester leg as connecting to the north, as though the north were just the north-west. It is time that Yorkshire got its act together and collaborated.

That will involve the Government supporting the universities in Yorkshire to combine to counterweight the golden triangle of Imperial, Oxford and Cambridge. It will involve the local authorities, as well as the city mayors, being able to see where their voice can be heard, for instance in the present maldistribution of vaccines—parts of Yorkshire have done so well in distribution that they are now being rationed—to ensure above all that the work done at the local level can be properly supported and a coherent policy developed from central government.

Given what is happening with Scotland and in Ireland, and given the failure to have any coherent policy for the English regions, confirmation of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority is way overdue. Since, uniquely, the region has two major cities—because Bradford is the size of Bristol—this will be a step forward in ensuring that the voice of the great, historic county of Yorkshire can at last be heard just as loudly as the voice of the north-west of England.