Genuine devolution is not about Whitehall handing down pots of money - Yorkshire Post Letters
From: John Hall, The Alliance for Yorkshire, Harrogate.
Sir Andy Street is entirely correct to warn that the next phase of devolution risks simply "treading water" without genuine fiscal autonomy (The Yorkshire Post, 3 June). The UK remains one of the most fiscally centralised countries in the developed world, with less than six per cent of tax revenue raised locally.
As it stands, the mayoral combined authorities across Yorkshire risk being little more than administrators of centrally determined budgets. A ‘single pot’ of funding is meaningless if the strings are still pulled by Whitehall. It leaves our regional leaders looking upwards to the Treasury for permission rather than outwards to the people they represent.
If the government truly wants to unlock regional productivity and address the persistent public investment disparities affecting the North, it must move beyond this timid, piecemeal approach.
Genuine devolution is not about Whitehall handing down pots of money; it is about giving regions the fiscal powers and financial responsibility needed to shape their own future.
For Yorkshire to thrive, we need a framework that allows our region to retain a meaningful share of the wealth and tax revenues generated here. Only then can we deliver the integrated transport network, economic strategy and long-term investment that a historic region of more than five million people deserves.
Sir Andy's intervention should serve as a wake-up call. It is time to stop extending a flawed centralised system and begin the real work of empowering regional economies.