Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)

I thank my noble friend. I warmly welcome the extension of mayoral arrangements into parts of our country outside metropolitan areas. I thank my noble friend and all those in Cheshire and Warrington—I met some of them earlier this week and I met them with him a couple of weeks ago—for the spirit of co-operation that has got them where they are in this process. We believe that there are huge benefits to urban and rural areas in having more powers and funding devolved to enable decisions to be made locally about what will work best for their citizens and to drive their local economies. I can confirm the Government’s commitment to ensure that new powers are matched with real devolution of funding. On the proposed integrated settlements, we will start with Manchester, Liverpool, the north-east, South Yorkshire, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire combined authorities. All of them will receive consolidated budgets so that mayors do not have to slalom between the complex funding pots to deliver the right solutions for their communities. I look forward to this exciting programme of devolution and to continuing to work with noble Lords on the White Paper as we go forward.