Julian Smith: What now for Yorkshire Forward and the region's economic future?

On my first visit to its headquarters earlier this year, the plush

Leeds office and free coffees in reception irritated me. This was a time when everyone in my executive recruitment business was feeling the impact of the recession.

In discussions with senior executives, and in subsequent contact from departments seeking to prove that my constituency had not been ignored in past spending decisions, I became more annoyed. How many people in the RDA had actually felt the pain of running a business? And isn't a business successful as a result of individual effort and not down to a Government or a quango? The coalition Government is clearly right to "call time" on Yorkshire Forward in its present form. We need to move Yorkshire forward but that doesn't mean we need Yorkshire Forward.

The thrust of the Government's approach is to scrap RDAs and replace them with local enterprise partnerships, driven not by central Government but by local authorities. Announcements have been made this week and councils are in the process of putting their thoughts to Ministers. Some councils believe there is a need for a Yorkshire Forward Mark 2, others are loath to hand back powers that have just been given to them and want to go it alone.

While supporting the scrapping of the current set-up, I believe it is right to acknowledge that Yorkshire Forward got right a number of things in a region which, despite my scepticism, does need some form of co-ordination to ensure economic success. Examples include success in attracting inward investment from overseas, rebuilding the tourist unit Welcome to Yorkshire and backing the Advanced Manufacturing Park between Rotherham and Sheffield.

Yorkshire Forward also has some very good people working in it. I am suspicious of kneejerk reorganisations, and am particularly keen to ensure that if there are good people and knowledge these are retained. Driving investment to the local level rather than a regional bureaucracy is a positive move allowing local councils, who know their areas, to lead economic development. But trying to replicate some of the broader responsibilities undertaken by Yorkshire Forward will be less straightforward.

Some functions just won't be as effectively run by individual councils. Broader regional goals will not be achieved by leaving it up to local councils to deal with big ticket investment opportunities such as carbon capture and storage.

In addition, is North Yorkshire County Council or Leeds City Region really going to be able to grapple with Chinese inward investment opportunities on their own, or get the best from Europe or London? The Government may suggest leaving inward investment to the UK-wide body UKTI which markets Britain internationally. But I am not convinced that UKTI is going to fight flat out for our region. This option risks Yorkshire being given significantly less priority than other areas. And over the past 13 years that happened all too often.

From now on it will be a relentless fight for every penny of Government and European cash and every inward investment job on offer.

Yorkshire has a massive advantage over all other regions English – it has a strong brand. The Yorkshire name counts for a lot in the UK and internationally. And it is a name backed by strong values of hard work and creativity. We should nurture that.

The Government and local councils in Yorkshire are right to guard against creating another bureaucracy. But in my view there needs to be some organisation to deal with those issues that genuinely are region-wide.

Yorkshire Forward Mark 2 should be a shadow of its former self. If I were running it, it would be based in a tin hut, a community interest company run by board members from business and with a high calibre chief executive. It would report monthly not to central Government but to local government and business. The numbers employed directly should be as small as possible and it should outsource as much work as it can. It would be 25 per cent or less of the present size of Yorkshire Forward.

It would have two simple goals – sell Yorkshire to the world to ensure we get as much inward investment as we can, and to take responsibility for large-scale Yorkshire-wide economic development such as tourism, hi-tech and green investment. It might even act as a local economic partnership for any council that does not want to run one.

We need a Yorkshire, as well as local solution, to the demise of our RDA. A solution by Yorkshire, for Yorkshire and owned by Yorkshire not by government.

We are only in the early stages of the tough times ahead and there is a long way to go. We need a strong voice to fight our corner. I urge local council leaders to accept their new powers with gusto but also to recognise that some areas of their new powers will be best run under a broader Yorkshire banner.

We then need a quick audit of what bits of Yorkshire Forward it makes sense to keep. As the public sector contracts, we are in for the fight of our lives. We need to put the rocket boosters under the Yorkshire economy to ensure a strong, vibrant private sector to create the jobs we so desperately need.

Julian Smith is MP for Skipton and Ripon.