Yorkshire needs devolution on steroids to start economic recovery: Dan Fell

As the country starts easing the lockdown, an opportunity is emerging not just to restart and recover, but also to rethink. This includes challenging not just how we do business but also why. Consequently, many business leaders will be reappraising what motivates and drives them, and reflecting on the communities they are at the heart of.

Regrettably, wealth creation and entrepreneurship can at times appear to be dirty words to some, including some politicians. Indeed, at various times last year – during the election campaign and ongoing Brexit debate – businesses could have been forgiven for asking where their friends are.

I hope what we are all going through now changes this as people reflect on the value of our high streets, the importance of the foundational economy, the role of industry in creating jobs and growth, and the many incredible acts of philanthropy we have seen from business alongside a gargantuan PPE effort. Put simply, communities need businesses just as businesses need communities.

This spirit of mutuality should inform an even bigger rethink. This time about how and why we do business as a country. In times of prosperity, the need for reciprocity between places and UK plc should be reasonably clear, in a time of crisis and recession – the likes of which we are about to face – it should be blindingly obvious.

The present Government made much of ‘levelling up’ in the 2019 election campaign and clearly this chimed in lots of communities. I was pleasantly surprised at the start of this year when the rhetoric started to feel real.

Key regeneration projects for Doncaster and the wider region – including a spur from the East Coast Mainline serving Doncaster Sheffield Airport and the wider area – started to feel very achievable. This contrasted with six months previously, when they had felt tenuous at best.

Less than a year ago, the North was perennially being asked to pick which schemes it wanted, for example, HS2 or Northern Powerhouse Rail? Intra-city regional connectivity or faster connections between major conurbations? The reality, of course, is that we need all these things.

As the North was consistently presented with these false choices, I couldn’t avoid the nagging doubt that Government still saw places like Doncaster and Yorkshire as problems to be solved not assets and opportunities to be maximised. The shift in relations between the North and South was largely about what was happening rather than how. Lots of pearls and trinkets – including game changing infrastructure projects – were being dangled across the blue wall. However, let’s not confuse baubles and bangles with a seismic shift in power and genuine devolution.

This debate is relevant now because, simply based on the quantum of money the Chancellor has had to spend to navigate the country through the Covid-19 pandemic – and the waves and waves of money that will have to follow – we are in an era of big government. However, big government does not have to mean a big Westminster ‘Government’ operating with a command and control ethos.

Instead this can mean government with a ‘small g’. One that is of places, deeply rooted in successful local partnerships and distributed leadership across a plethora of organisations united by a deep commitment to people and places.

In many ways, the toolkit that we will want and need to drive economies like Doncaster and Yorkshire post Covid-19 will look very similar to the one we wanted previously.

Organisations like Chambers will always be advocating for more investment in education, support of international traders, infrastructure investment, support for regional airports like Doncaster Sheffield Airport, creating more vibrant cities and much more. This shopping list of policy interventions will become doubly important as we rebuild Yorkshire’s economy and they must continue at pace. There will be questions about affordability of course, but doing these things will, in the long term, benefit the country’s finances rather than add to the debt.

If we are to successfully change the way we do business as a country we must transition to an asset-based view of the North. There have been positive moves towards devolution in Yorkshire lately, we now need devolution on steroids so that people and leaders who know their economies and communities have the tools they need to do the job. It’s not just time to reopen, it’s time to rethink and reimagine.

Dan Fell is chief executive of Doncaster Chamber

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