A One Yorkshire devolved parliament is the way forward for the region - Yorkshire Post Letters

In The Yorkshire Post, November 19, the YP comments on the large and growing educational attainment A-level exam gap between Yorkshire's richest and poorest (disadvantaged/more well off) students.

In the same issue, The Post writes about how semi-devolved Yorkshire Metro Mayors are railing, yet again, against decades of subsequent Westminster Government's failures to both deliver Northern Powerhouse Rail, and real transformative investment into Yorkshire's ancient railway system, stymied ever since the Beeching Cuts and the socio-economic legacy of post-industrialisation, which permanently damaged Yorkshire's ability to improve our own rail services without London's say-so.

West and South of Yorkshire Mayors Tracy Brabin and Oliver Coppard are right to fight Yorkshire's corner in education and transport using their limited powers.

But ultimately power, fiscal levers, and the necessary political will to do so resides entirely within London - in, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt’s hands.

Both problems are structural and historical in nature and the solution to both is with a Yorkshire Parliament. The cross-party One Yorkshire proposal is projected to be worth £30bn in economic growth (£5,500 per person) and create 200,000 jobs in Yorkshire over 10 years.

Sadly this was shot down by the Conservative Government in Westminster despite the support of 18/20 district councils in our shire.

It's surprising the Yorkshire Post failed to note the importance of devolution within the Autumn Budget last week. The £1.5bn extra given to Scotland (similar population to Yorkshire), the £1.2bn given to Wales (half the economy of Yorkshire) and other money given to the devolved administrations in discretionary finance and block grants, which can be paid by the Scottish, Welsh, and NI Parliaments directly into education provision, NHS patient funding and rail infrastructure upgrades.

These three other regions of the UK receive this thanks to provisions in the

Barnett Formula, which allocates extra spending to areas outside of Westminster's direct rule, while Yorkshire received nowt in the same scale.

If Yorkshire is to economically recover properly from the pandemic, provide practical mechanisms to narrow the gap in the education of Yorkshire's youth, to properly upgrade our transport system, to ensure our NHS has decent standards of pay and patient outcome and to respond to the existential

crisis of climate breakdown.

Yorkshire must come together with one voice and call for a One Yorkshire Parliament, to bring Yorkshire into the Barnett Formula, and to prove to senior political leaders in London that Yorkshire will no longer be ignored.

In my ward, youth services are non-existent and our village's only GP surgery was closed earlier this year.

I see a bountiful future for Yorkshire - but one which can only be achieved with a measure of devolved home-rule, still within the UK, not as we are currently, forced to traipse flat-cap-in-hand to Westminster.

One Yorkshire Parliamentary devolution opens the way to a better, more well funded future for every single person who lives in our country, regardless of political belief, creed, colour or ideology.

Devolution benefits us all by bringing in more money in public services and is backed by many businesses who see how ease of trade and access to Government contracts has helped spur development in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland via the Barnett Formula.