What now for One Yorkshire? – John Grogan and Timothy Kirkhope

‘THINGS fall apart, the centre cannot hold’.

November will mark the centenary of the publication of W B Yeats’s poem The Second Coming of which these lines are the most often quoted. 

Written during both the Irish War of Independence and the Spanish flu pandemic, the poem has a haunting resonance for our politics a century later.

The institutions of the United Kingdom have been put under great strain over the last seven months during the fight against the coronavirus. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have ploughed their own furrows.

What is the way forward for Yorkshire devolution?

Remarkably the Prime Minister has hardly spoken to the Welsh First Minister for months. In addition tensions have mounted in England with many of the nine elected metro mayors emerging as local and regional champions.

It is as if the Government has yet to come to terms with the implications of the devolution it espouses.

Meanwhile in Germany, which operates a federal system where health and much else is the responsibility of 16 states, things appear to be going better. 

Chancellor Angela Merkel does not always see eye to eye with regional leaders, but continuing dialogue is, by necessity, entrenched into the system.

South Yorkshire faces Tier 3 restrictions on Covid-19 from this weekend.

The continuing debate about how Yorkshire should be governed takes place in this context. For those of us who believe that with a population of five million Yorkshire should be to England what Bavaria is to Germany it is time to take stock. 

After last December’s election, council leaders here realised that they had to put on hold their ambitions for a One Yorkshire devolution settlement if they were to secure much needed Government grants and not fall behind Birmingham and Manchester. 

Four sub-regional settlements were effectively accepted. In return the Government acknowledged in March that the Yorkshire Leaders Board (with all 22 councils invited plus elected Mayors) was ‘a practical step for facilitating greater collaboration on a Yorkshire-wide basis’. 

Since then they have appointed a middle-ranking civil servant to be Director of Place for the Yorkshire and the Humber. 

The Government's handling of Covid-19 is leading to calls for more devolution to Yorkshire.

Unfortunately there have continued to be a series of missteps which perhaps reflects the fact that there is no senior Minister exclusively responsible for overseeing the process. 

The Prime Minister promised a Yorkshire floods summit a year ago. All that has happened since, in true Yes Minister style, is a hastily arranged conference call for South Yorkshire after the Mayor of the Sheffield City Region, Dan Jarvis, secured a debate on the subject in Parliament. 

Council leaders from all parties in North and East Yorkshire, and Hull, have spent much political capital generating devolution proposals – only for mixed messages to emerge from Government about whether they will proceed. The publication of the long promised Devolution White Paper in 2021 will finally indicate whether the process is still on track or not.

So what can be done to further the idea of Yorkshire-wide collaboration and devolution? Several ideas emerged from a seminar on the theme ‘Together Yorkshire’ which we recently co-chaired.

Firstly it was suggested that the Yorkshire Leaders Board could push out the boat a little bit co-operating on joint projects which do not need Government permission. They might call their own Yorkshire-wide flood prevention summit looking to the future. Ministers would, of course, be invited. 

Equally setting up a Climate Change Commission for Yorkshire and the Humber could galvanise the efforts of both public and private sectors. 

Secondly it is clear that candidates in next year’s West Yorkshire mayoral contest will be pressed to match the promise made by Dan Jarvis to work if elected for an eventual One Yorkshire settlement. If Yorkshire’s elected mayors can co-operate together, a powerful example will be set.

Thirdly it was felt that the idea that the North can be treated as one convenient unit by the Government needs to be challenged. Clearly there needs to be co-operation across the Pennines and with the North East, but the stronger political identities and allegiances are Yorkshire, Tyneside, Merseyside and Greater Manchester.

Finally it is becoming increasingly evident that a much more significant transfer of power and resources from Whitehall will be required if Yorkshire is truly to level up with the South East.

It was noted that constitutional convention was held in Scotland in the 1990s, bringing together political parties , civil society and religious leaders to make a plan for the future. 

The option is there for Yorkshire, at the appropriate time, to do likewise.