Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether introducing an elected mayor will be a requirement of all future devolution deals with combined authorities.

Development of devolution deals is a bottom up process, in which areas bring us their proposals for the powers and budgets they want devolved to them. The accompanying governance arrangements they propose to support those powers and budgets must be commensurate with the scale of devolution they are seeking.

Elected mayors provide that strong, single point of accountability which is essential for any devolution deal of the scale and ambition of the deals we have announced for Greater Manchester, Sheffield City Region, Tees Valley and the North East.