Cameron confident on devo deal for Leeds City Region
THE Prime Minister says he is confident a devolution deal will be done in the Leeds City Region.
Members from the West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA), which works alongside the Leeds City Region LEP to deliver the Local Growth Deal for West Yorkshire and the entire Leeds City Region, were hopeful of being able to announce a devolution deal before Christmas but officials are still waiting for the deal to be done. David Cameron has been in Halifax this morning to launch the first Conservative election campaign poster. Speaking to the media, he said the Leeds City Region devolution deal is being looked at “right now”.
“You’ve seen good devo deals done in Manchester and Sheffield and I am sure more can be done and this is part of a pattern,” he said.
“But it’s not coming from nowhere – we have had the City Deals already which have provided extra resources and powers for Britain’s cities and I am confident a devo deal can be done.”
Mr Cameron said there needs to be a proper negotiation while Government is trying to work out which are the better powers to be devolved, what money can be found, what development can be done and what room is there for businesses to expand.
“The whole point of these agreements is that it is about Whitehall emptying out as much of the powers as it can but also asking cities, including Leeds, to come forward with ideas on what they can do,” he said.
Throughout the past four and a half years of the current parliament, Mr Cameron, who told local media that his New Year’s resolution is to try and be more helpful with his children’s homework, said Yorkshire and the Humber has “done well” highlighting that there are now 119,000 more people in work in the region and a quarter of a million apprenticeships have been created during this period.
The Prime Minister said that in order for Yorkshire to keep up with cities such as Manchester, which agreed a major devolution deal with the Government last year, there are things the Government is doing nationally that help, such as cuts in corporation tax, the easing of burdens for small business through employment allowance and changes to business rates.
“The new jobs are there if you reward on enterprise, make it easy to establish businesses and help businesses to grow,” he added. “Today there are a record number of men and women at work.”
During today’s launch, Mr Cameron described this year’s election as the most important for a generation.
He highlighted a number of achievements the Government has made over its time in Parliament including the creation of two million private sector jobs, getting 1.75 million more people in work, cutting taxes for 26 million people and training two million apprentices. He said that the Conservatives would create another three million apprentices in the next Parliament as well as hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
