If Greater Manchester has been the leader in the devolution pack, the northeast has been the laggard. Just last month, Helen Barbour, the vice-chairwoman of Barbour, the wax jacket company, was among a number of business chiefs in the region to express her fears that the rivalry between Newcastle and Sunderland football teams risked jeopardising its bid for devolution.
As MP for Stockton South in North Yorkshire, James Wharton, who was born and raised in the northeast, is keenly aware of the potential problems, but says they can be overblown. “You can make too much of these perceived rivalries. The football teams might get a bit rowdy occasionally when they play one another, but everybody sees the opportunity that significant devolution can offer.”
Newcastle, Sunderland, Durham, Northumberland, South and North Tyneside, and Gateshead have, in fact, come together to create the North East Combined Authority, stretching 100 miles over industrial and rural areas. Mr Wharton is not concerned by the size of the region.
“If the geography is too big in what amounts to a part of a region, then you do have to ask how this has been managed for so many years with the entire country being run from London and Westminster.”
He says areas will always combine a mix of people with different interests and outlooks. “This is a wholesale transfer of significant powers much closer to the ground and the people that they affect, and those powers were run from London before for the country as whole, so it’s going to be a lot closer than it was.”