England: Historic Counties Debate
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Lord Blunkett
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England: Historic Counties
Lord Blunkett Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My noble friend is right to raise this issue. The Government have taken steps to ensure it is easier to recognise historic counties. In 2014, planning rules were changed to allow councils to put up boundary signs marking traditional English counties. In 2015, the Government commissioned Ordnance Survey to produce historic and ceremonial county-boundary datasets, and we are open to other ideas.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
My Lords, the national insurance hike last week skewed funding under the Barnett formula still further. If the historic county of Yorkshire, which has a population slightly larger than Scotland’s, had its own Barnett formula, it would receive an extra £12 billion. Would that not be levelling up?
Lord Greenhalgh (Con)
My Lords, I thought the supplementary questions might go in any direction, but I recognise that the noble Lord is a proud Yorkshireman and that he will do all he can to ensure the county gets the resources it needs.