WHY DEVOLUTION
The Yorkshire Party was formed in 2013 to promote regional devolution to address the North-South divide and is calling for a One Yorkshire devolved administration with similar powers to those of Scotland and Wales.
Yorkshire has fallen behind London and the South of England and the Party says it knows exactly why.
Successive Governments’ mismanagement has resulted in the Yorkshire and the North of England becoming increasingly separated economically from prosperous London and the South-East
Years of neglect have created more inequality between the UK’s regions. The North of England is compared to East Germany at the end of the Cold War in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down.
The Party draws attention to Switzerland and Germany, which both have regional political arrangements similar to devolution and are two of the most successful countries in Europe.
The list of the top 18 cities in Europe, by GDP, shows London first with no other British city to make the list. i Germany, however, has six in the list. This is because
Germany has allowed all its areas to prosper through fair funding and regional government, resulting in local people dealing with local issues.
In 2018, the UK Government asked Yorkshire for a proposition for an Assembly - 18 of the 20 Yorkshire councils combined to submit a proposal.
The bid called on the Government to devolve responsibility and funding for transport, education, policing, hospitals, promoting business; and to create a Yorkshire Combined Assembly.
According to an independent economic study, One Yorkshire devolution could increase Yorkshire’s economic output by up to a £30 billion a year,
After much delay, the then Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said the plan did “not meet our
devolution criteria”. When pressed to explain the criteria, Mr Brokenshire declined to explain.
The Government favours City mayors, concentrating power with one person in one city, marginalising the small towns and villages in the region. This option has no future in Yorkshire as it is only tinkering at the edges and makes little difference to the region’s prosperity.
At the time of Mr Brokenshire’s decision, Yorkshire Party Leader Chris Whitwood said: “This is a disgrace. Mr Brokenshire, a London MP, has no mandate to overrule the wishes of Yorkshire
people. But this is what he has done. But we aren’t surprised.
The Westminster Government is scared of anything that might give real power to Yorkshire, so people would start to see what a bad job the Government is doing of running the North.