Yorkshire Devolution

Melanie Onn Excerpts

Tuesday 9th January 2018 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this important debate. He spoke passionately on behalf of his constituents and set out what he believes is a potential solution to the current impasse with the South Yorkshire devolution deal. In fact, an hour or so before this debate, I received a letter from Barnsley and Doncaster councils that set out a proposed solution in a very similar form to his.

Before we talk about what can be done to unblock Yorkshire devolution—it is clear that there is a stalemate—it is important to point out that we are not starting from a green field. The negotiations on the South Yorkshire devolution deal started in 2015. The hon. Gentleman and many of his colleagues were in this House and had an opportunity to engage with their local authority and ask what devolution should look like in South Yorkshire. I accept that he would probably say that times have changed and that the poll with its massive 20% turnout—although the result was emphatic from that 20%—changes things.

I am grateful to get it on record that, as the hon. Gentleman correctly said, the Government set out a compromise solution before Christmas that could enable us to break the stalemate in South Yorkshire. The difference between his proposed solution and ours is that we believe that the best way to ensure that further devolution can take place anywhere else in Yorkshire is to fully implement the devolution deal for South Yorkshire first, including having an election. Back in 2015 and on two further occasions, the four South Yorkshire authorities came to Government and requested that that deal, together with the gain share, was legislated for in this House. It was voted through the House of Commons.

Given the poll in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, that might not be the ideal solution, but we would face certain challenges in relation to his proposed solution. First, it remains the law of the land that the election for the South Yorkshire Mayor will take place in May. The process for delaying the date of that election would be to ensure that all the councils in South Yorkshire agreed to the election being delayed. As of today, I am not aware that all of them have.

Secondly, the Government would need to agree to a new proposed date for the election. We would need to have a draft order prepared, cleared through the Government’s legal adviser and laid before Parliament. We would then need time to approve it through motions in the House of Commons and the House of Lords and time for the order to come into force. To do that between now and May, given the parliamentary business that we have, looks extremely tight. That is why I hope that all the authorities of South Yorkshire will give proper consideration to the proposed compromise solution that was set out by my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

I want to set out the terms of that compromise on the record. It is proposed that the four South Yorkshire councils agree to do all that is necessary for the Sheffield city region deal to be implemented as soon as practicable after the mayoral election. That would require them to first undertake the consultation on the functions that should be devolved to the combined authority and to the Mayor and to give their consent to any order effecting that devolution.

The Government would then agree with Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield councils that if a “one Yorkshire” solution were to come forward or a deal were developed, and the Government and councils concerned were able to consent to it, the constituent parts of the existing South Yorkshire deal would be free to leave that deal at the end of the initial mayoral term, on the proviso that the transport arrangements covering South Yorkshire had been considered.

I understand from the hon. Member for Barnsley Central that that is not an ideal solution, but it may be a practical one. We have proposed the compromise to all the South Yorkshire authorities and it is ultimately for them, with the compelling result of the referendum in Barnsley and Doncaster in mind, to negotiate between themselves to see if a compromise can be reached. We have had a response from Barnsley, Doncaster and Sheffield; we have not yet had a response from Rotherham.

I make an open offer to the hon. Gentleman that I will work with him and his colleagues to see if such a compromise can be reached. I reiterate that the Government do not intend to undo the legislation of this House to change the date of the election for the South Yorkshire mayoral combined authority election, and even if we intended to do so, I do not believe that it would be possible in parliamentary terms to pass the necessary orders from where we are today.

[Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)]

It sounds as if the proposal that has been laid out by the Opposition has not found favour with the Minister as yet. I hope that that does not preclude any conversations that other authorities across the whole of Yorkshire may wish to have. Would he encourage local authorities to have such conversations—if they continue, which I hope they will—with other authorities in the whole of the Yorkshire and Humber region including northern Lincolnshire?

[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.