Member

At its core, this White Paper sets out how the Government will strengthen and widen the mayoral model of devolution across England, shifting power, decision-making and money away from Westminster in a completely new way of governing and driving growth. We are empowering more mayors by introducing integrated funding settlements, and by giving them a statutory role in the rail network, and greater control over strategic planning, housing funding and skills training, so that they can deliver change that local people can see and benefit from. Ultimately, our goal is mayoral devolution that means that powers can be used to shape local labour markets, integrated transport systems, clusters of businesses, and housing development. That is the sort of strategic decision-making that is not possible over a smaller geographic area. By creating strategic authorities—a new tier of local government—we will give our cities and regions a bigger voice in getting the resources and support that they need.