Call to drop 'and the Humber' from Yorkshire statistics
Devolution group Alliance for Yorkshire has launched a campaign to drop “and the Humber” from the region’s title, ahead of a review by the Office for National Statistics.
Alliance for Yorkshire, an informal network of individuals and organisations from across the region and political spectrum, is calling for Yorkshire to be recognised as "a distinct statistical region", arguing it would better reflect economic coherence, administrative reality, functional geography, government operation and the needs of data users.
Raising a formal concern under the Code of Practice for Statistics over the use of the International Territorial Levels (ITL) system regional title "Yorkshire and the Humber", the group has written to the Office for National Statistics and Office for Statistics Regulation, ahead of an ITL review early next year.
It has underlined how the regional name is a legacy of the former county of Humberside, created in 1974 and formally abolished in 1996. The group states: “It has not existed for nearly 30 years. The name “and the Humber" now refers to nothing in administrative, governance, or functional terms.”
Alliance for Yorkshire argues recent changes to local governance have made the continued use of the “Yorkshire and the Humber” title untenable, with the establishment of Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority as part of Yorkshire and the Greater Lincolnshire Combined County Authority.
A spokesman for the group said: “There is no shared administration, no shared governance, and no shared economic strategy across the river. Yorkshire lies to the north of the Humber estuary; Lincolnshire lies to the south. The government has already recognised this reality in creating these combined authority structures. The statistical nomenclature has not kept pace.”
It emphasised that regional users rely on official statistics for planning, investment advocacy and policy purposes.
An Alliance for Yorkshire spokesman added: "A failure to engage with a well-evidenced, formally submitted concern about a regional name during the scheduled 2027 review would itself constitute a trustworthiness failure under the code.
“A body that creates governance-aligned combined authority names while simultaneously retaining a governance-misaligned regional name fails its own coherence standard.”
South and West Yorkshire combined authorities declined to comment, while York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority and the ONS did not respond to a request for a comment.
A spokesman for Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority said: “This is a statistical matter for the ONS. It does not affect the boundaries or powers of Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority. Our focus remains on working with neighbouring combined authorities and regional partners to deliver the best outcomes for residents and businesses.”