West Yorkshire devolution: Why a Leeds city region is the answer

Earlier in 2020 my co-author, Dr. Georgina Blakeley, and I wrote a blog on the topic of devolution in the Leeds City Region. The plan to set up a Mayoral Combined Authority, within which Huddersfield and Kirklees are to be embraced, will alter our lives in the locality and for members of the University of Huddersfield.

We argued then that the demands for a Yorkshire-wide Combined Authority, for which many had been clamouring, had always been doomed to failure. We explained why that was the case in that blog, but the main reason we gave was that the present government did not favour it.

It is also true that the large scale, regionally-based local government structures in England, such as Yorkshire, the South West and the East Midlands, were inappropriate as those regions are ‘ghosts’ rather than entities with which people identify. They also lack economic salience and integration.

Cities will still prosper despite COVID-19

In its place, a Leeds city region arrangement has now been negotiated. Cities, according to the currently popular argument that a shift to people working from home will undermine their importance, are not going to wither but will remain important hubs in the centre of large population clusters.

In any event, the case for city regional Combined Authorities does not rest on the purpose of privileging the cities, but on the merits of partnership between city centres and the surrounding towns such as Huddersfield in our city region, or Stockport in Greater Manchester. Such Combined Authorities are fully representative, and so such towns share in planning and policy-making and in the receipt of the benefits which the Combined Authorities can distribute.

As well as being fully represented in the governing councils of the Combined Authorities, the Council leaders from the surrounding towns take on their share of policy portfolios for the city region - for transport, skills, economic development or arts and culture. Each of the individual Council areas comprising the Combined Authority also retain power over more locally orientated services, which are best managed at a more local level leaving the Combined Authorities to handle strategic issues.

Manchester and Liverpool show how it might work

We are engaged in a major project on the case studies of Greater Manchester and the Liverpool region, and we are finding ample evidence that all the towns in the Combined Authorities gain a share of the benefits. These can be investments in businesses, development corporations and major leisure facilities.

Their integration is also demonstrated by attaining symbolic accolades, such as being the Borough of Culture recently achieved by Bury and St Helens. National government house building targets can also be more easily shared across a Combined Authority rather than each Council struggling to meet its own target

The government is shortly to produce a White Paper on English devolution. The current signs are that city regions in urban areas, and combined unitary authorities in rural areas, with directly elected Metro Mayors, are what will be on offer. The government is highly unlikely to unscramble the existing nine Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs), so Kirklees will be confirmed as a participating borough and should aim to exploit the possibilities that it will offer. Universities are central in MCAs as Anchor Institutions, so there will be advantages to be gained by being on board.

Does the government really want to devolve power to the regions?

There is some justified scepticism about the degree to which the government is truly committed to the idea of devolving sufficient powers and resources to these new structures. The feeling is that it is only offering lip service and ‘passing the buck’ because times are hard. The recent attempt by the Department of Health to set up a national testing, tracking and tracing system, only to find that it is better to operate with existing local public health systems if the COVID-19 threat is to be effectively managed, suggest that this government still has a centralist bias.

What we and local politicians should be focussing on is that the White Paper does not simply set up new devolved structures, but instead actually transfers substantial powers and resources to MCAs and Unitary Authorities to help them succeed. We can then enjoy a properly devolved and place-based system of government rather than the shambolic and over centralised system which we endure at present.