Hull and East Riding’s big chance is devolution – Yorkshire Post Letters

I HAVE been following your reports about the future formation of a Combined Mayoral Authority (CMA) for the City of Kingston upon Hull and the East Riding of Yorkshire.

I have lived in various parts of Yorkshire for most of my life and also for a time in the West Midlands, where I was a city councillor in Wolverhampton, and so I have seen the benefits of unitary authorities co-operating on matters such as transport.

Here in Yorkshire we already have two devolution deals in place for the Sheffield City Region and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. The remainder of Yorkshire could form two other CMAs – namely one for the City of Kingston upon Hull & East Riding of Yorkshire and the other for the City of York & North Yorkshire (once their district councils have formed unitary authorities).

From what I have read the Government has already indicated that £200,000 funding would be made available so, that at a Yorkshire-level, there could be collaboration through the Yorkshire Leaders Board between the four CMAs, thus giving Yorkshire greater clout when talking to national government, especially when you consider that in 2011 the Yorkshire population was 5.3 million which is equal or greater than that of Scotland.

I am therefore very much in favour of such a move, as it is not a ‘merger’, but a Combined Mayoral Authority which will bring greater devolved powers from Whitehall to our part of Yorkshire and give this part of the country much more control over its own destiny in an area that has, since ancient times, being under the same Lord Lieutenancy of the East Riding of Yorkshire.

From: Martin J. Phillips, Tinshill Lane, Leeds.

WHATEVER actions the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, takes to balance the books of the Treasury, the one thing you can guarantee is that he will not lay any of the country’s financial burden onto those who can most afford it i.e. the very rich.

Public sector workers are faced with yet another pay freeze while weathly individuals and businesses can continue to avoid paying tax on the billions they have got hidden away in tax havens.

The quickest way for the Chancellor to get the country back on its feet would be to change the laws so that tax ‘avoidance’ is illegal –in the same way as tax ‘evasion’ is. Morally, there is no difference between the two. If he did this, Mr Sunak could have a windfall of £500bn or more every year.

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