Lesson in the obvious as Robert Jenrick admits councils ‘bound to be better’ at contact tracing - The Yorkshire Post says

Quite why it has taken more than six months into the global pandemic for those in our London Government to make this blindingly obvious recognition is inexplicable. Local political leaders are, by their very roles, experts in their local areas.

Amid reports that councils are to be given greater control over the Test and Trace programme, and town hall bosses could be empowered to deploy local volunteers to knock on doors and ask people to self-isolate, Mr Jenrick’s admissions beg the question why they were not utilised from the very outset.

The nation waits with bated breath for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to set out the expected new three-tiered system of coronavirus restrictions, including the strong possibility that pubs and restaurants across large areas of the North will have to shut and millions of people will be banned from mixing indoors and outdoors.

Sheffield City Region Mayor Dan Jarvis joined leaders across the North this weekend in urging the Government to provide more cash to support areas which face further lockdowns, with warnings that failing to do so could risk “levelling down” communities and widening the North-South divide.

With Mr Jenrick’s long overdue recognition of the valuable insight that local leaders can provide, the Government now needs to give them the powers – and resources. After all, Mr Johnson’s continued promises to ‘level up’ the country will be judged on actions, not words, here in Yorkshire and across the North.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson