Devolution is working in Yorkshire and mayors are becoming recognisable faces - JP Spencer

At Labour Together, we polled people across the 12 existing mayoral areas to see what they thought; asking those who know the new system best how it is going. And the results are encouraging.

Across the country, there is increasing recognition of and support for mayors. On average, 50 per cent of residents in mayoral regions can now correctly identify their mayor, a figure that rises to 59 per cent in the areas with the most advanced devolution settlements like Greater Manchester, potentially more so than Members of Parliament. And 55 per cent of people with a view think their mayor is doing a good job overall.

This shows that the more powers given to a place, the more people understand the role and the more consequential devolution becomes to their lives. Popular mayors have the potential to create a virtuous cycle of trust in politics, something sorely lacking in recent years.

And this heightened awareness suggests that mayors are becoming prominent figures in local politics. Whereas the latter are drawn to Westminster to fight for their constituents on the national stage, mayors now hold local levers of power alongside devolved funding over areas like transport, adult skills, housing, regeneration and more.

It is worth pausing to reflect on the broad range of work that our mayors and their teams are doing to benefit their areas. This good work would simply not be happening without devolution and the cross-party consensus that has enabled it. In West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin has plans for spades in the ground on a new mass transit system by 2028. In South Yorkshire, Oliver Coppard is pioneering a new ‘beds for babies’ scheme which guarantees every child under five has a safe place to sleep. And in York and North Yorkshire, David Skaith has hit the ground running with new challenge funds to support high streets and businesses.

Our analysis suggests these diverse policy interests are well founded. Across all mayoral areas, a majority of people thought that mayors should have more control over policy areas ranging from transport and housing to health and education.

This is because people think that mayors are better able to use their local knowledge to make decisions better suited for their areas. Such a statement may seem obvious - but in a country that has been one of the most centralised in the developed world it has often been contested.

For too long, power was hoarded in Westminster. Yorkshire was often out of sight and out of mind to the key policy makers. But with mayors living and breathing their areas every day, this is spurring new action to deliver change for people.

And devolution presents new opportunities for collaboration across Yorkshire. Together, the three existing mayors have pledged to consider Yorkshire-wide issues as a collective - soon to be joined by a fourth member.

JP Spencer is director of devolution policy at Labour Together.