OPINION: Autumn Budget fails Yorkshire – it’s time for real devolution

Rather than easing the pressure on local businesses, high streets, farmers, and households, it does the opposite. Costs keep climbing, taxes are up, and sectors like hospitality and farming have been left out in the cold.

Yet while households and businesses face mounting financial pressure, our communities are set to see almost nothing in return. Funding for the north remains limited, investment in infrastructure is minimal, and closer to home, years of campaigning have still failed to deliver progress on dualling the Knaresborough-York line or upgrading the York Ring Road – two projects that would make a real, tangible difference for local people. Once again, a northern Chancellor has prioritised the south, leaving Yorkshire behind.

That failure isn’t just Westminster’s doing – it reveals serious flaws in our devolution model and a lack of leadership from David Skaith, Mayor of York and North Yorkshire. At a time when our region needed a strong voice fighting for investment and infrastructure, that voice was missing, allowing Westminster to overlook a region brimming with potential.

The existing model of devolution, with four elected mayors, is clearly not delivering for Yorkshire. Their powers and budgets fall far short of what’s needed to address our challenges. Worse still, devolution has been carved up in a way that divides rather than unites us. As this Budget demonstrates, fragmented control forces local leaders to compete for scarce resources instead of working together on solutions for the whole region.

This Budget made clear that Yorkshire cannot reach its full potential while power remains concentrated in Westminster or scattered among a patchwork of mayors. What we need is a Yorkshire Parliament with real powers and genuine region-wide autonomy. With the population of Scotland, the economy of Wales, and a proud regional identity, Yorkshire deserves the ability to take responsibility for its own future.

That’s why I recently tabled an amendment to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill to create a Yorkshire Parliament, transferring real powers to leaders who truly understand our communities. With control over transport, health, education, and more, we could deliver coordinated, long-term improvements across the region instead of relying on isolated, piecemeal projects.

With these powers, we could create a fully integrated transport system that reflects how people actually live and travel, build a health system tailored to local populations, and develop education and skills policies that directly support our industries and communities – rather than relying on one-size-fits-all national policies that repeatedly fail to serve Yorkshire.

If Westminster won’t back our future, it must step aside and let us take charge. Our potential is waiting to be unlocked, and I’m determined to make that happen. With a Yorkshire Parliament and real powers in the hands of leaders who understand our communities, we can build the infrastructure, services, and opportunities our region needs – instead of being held back by the kind of neglect we saw in this Autumn Budget.