As the government announces the proposed route for HS2 it appears that the train may well have left the station for Yorkshire in terms of the devolution deals. As Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool start to campaign in readiness to elect a mayor next year, Yorkshire remains in disarray over the form and shape devolution should take.
This is somewhat disappointing given that over the years much has been made about the cohesiveness of Yorkshire culturally and about “Brand Yorkshire” and yet ironically when it comes to its future governance there is no clear consensus.
Andrew Percy, the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse, said that elected mayors will still be part of the deal, confirming that mayors remain central to the government’s devolution proposals. Many in Yorkshire have wanted to see a Yorkshire wide devolution covering the whole county of five million people with an economy larger that Scotland – a deal that Percy is reported to support, along with North and East Yorkshire Council leaders.
However South Yorkshire council leaders, along with Chesterfield and Bassetlaw, agreed a draft City region deal with the government last year. As it stands, City Region mayoral elections for Sheffield City Region are still scheduled to go ahead next year but these were supposed to have been finalised two weeks ago and placed into statutory orders at the end of October.
Two things have muddied the water for South Yorkshire. The first is that the question of the inclusion of Chesterfield into Sheffield City Region is now the subject of a legal challenge by Derbyshire County Council. If the courts decide to uphold Derbyshire challenge that could pave the way for a wholesale review of the way the region is pursing devolution.
The second is the rather late intervention by Doncaster Mayor Ros Jones who now appears to be throwing cold water on the idea of a deal for South Yorkshire (despite having agreed to it last year) saying “We need a conversation with Government as to whether a deal can be done without a Mayor, which is our preferred option”.
The government have not helped matters with HS2. Doncaster are very unhappy about the recommendations for the proposed station and route of HS2 – and in Sheffield there is not even a solution yet on the table to this.
What is clear is that nothing is clear. Many in South Yorkshire now worry that the reservations expressed by Doncaster, and the intervention of Derbyshire County Council could permanently derail the devolution deal – and the additional £30million a year funding allocation could walk out the door. The Chamber of Commerce for South Yorkshire is supportive of the deal and now fears that any delays will result in missed opportunities in terms of jobs, skills and investment – something that is now even more crucial with the Brexit vote.
Next Monday 28 November, the Yorkshire All Party Parliamentary Group of Yorkshire MPs will be meeting the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, who no doubt will then be questioned – and lobbied – by MPs on the state of the devo deals. It is reported he is no fan of the Yorkshire wide solution – although Andrew Percy, a former co-chair of the APPG, is. But irrespective of that Yorkshire needs to get its act together and in particular, South Yorkshire needs to know if it’s got a devolution deal or not.
I sit on the Advisory Group for Our Fair City campaign, a campaign that came out of the Fairness Commission in Sheffield. The fact that the city is becoming more unequal and seeing greater numbers of people in dire straights is simply unacceptable in an econmy as large as ours. These are often people who are in work but on such low wages, or zero hours contracts, that they simply cannot make ends meet. These are people who are increasingly relying on food banks, something we should be trying to eradicate – instead we have seen the number grow over the last year.
So those of us campaigning in Sheffield for a Fairer City will be in urging the Chancellor to do the right thing in tomorrow’s Autumn Statement and make sure that fairness and help for the most vulnerable are at the heart of policy announcements.
Chair of Sheffield’s Fairness Commission and Fair City Advisory Group, Professor Alan Walker said
“On Monday the Prime Minister told the CBI that people don’t want a cliff-edge; they want to know with some certainty how things are going to go. But it is not the business community she should be saying this to but all those who are “just about managing” and those who are really struggling to survive.
Research tells us that the combined impact of welfare cuts will leave struggling working families worse off by more than £2,500 a year by 2020. She must now live up to her promise made in July to help ordinary working class families hit so badly by the Government’s welfare cuts.”
Our Fair City campaign, launched by the Fairness Commission last year is asking the Chancellor to announce:
Abolition of the proposed freezes on in-work welfare benefits and the £30 a week cuts to disability benefit Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), due to kick in from April 2017.
No income tax give away especially, for higher earners, and tax incentives to housebuilders to be replaced by simply commissioning them to build affordable housing.
Follow our lead in Sheffield by offering cheaper credit to those who are struggling and indebted. This is a win-win solution helping people to become more financially independent and manage their money better rather than giving what little money they do have to predatory loan sharks.
NOTES TO EDITORS;
IN SHEFFIELD:
According to State of Sheffield 2016 report there are now 47% of workless households of working age deemed to be “ in poverty” whilst 60% of all working-age households in poverty have at least one person in employment
Speaking at a recent Fight for Fairer Food event in Sheffield recently Demi Ennals, Chair of Sheffield’s Food Bank Network said that there are currently 19 foodbanks in Sheffield and the number is growing. The event, held as part of the Festival of Debate, heard from a range of people who are affected by food poverty or those working towards reducing food inequality and noted that over £400 million worth of food is wasted in Sheffield every year.
According to new research from End Child Poverty Action the Sheffield constituency of Brightside and Hillsborough was listed as the 14th worst constituency in the country, with 39.7% of children said to be living in poverty. In Sheffield Central constituency 34.95% of children are in poverty (after housing costs). http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/poverty-in-your-area-2016/
Sheffield’s Fairness Commission launched the Our Fair City campaign in 2015 to combat inequalities and make Sheffield a fairer place. It follows a report in 2013 by the city’s Fairness Commission, which found Sheffield’s population is one of the most divided in Britain. http://www.ourfaircity.co.uk/. Along with a Fair Employers Charter the Campaign has also launched Fair Money that is a not-for-profit loan scheme offering loans, credit and savings accounts from a number of responsible providers https://sheffieldmoney.co.uk/
So much has happened in the last week that it’s been hard to really try and define what on earth we are all about and where we are going. Whilst commentators and pundits try and work out if orange is the new black (nod to over the pond) back here we are trying to work out if Brexit means Brexit. And whether we are about to replicate America – or if America has just replicated events over here.
People seem to have been genuinely surprised and shocked at the EU referendum result and the USA presidential elections. Actually if you reflect for any length of time all the signs have been there for years. Technology speeds up pace of life and inevitably the pace of change. What would have happened over a generation now takes a few years, what happens over a decade much less. This has been building for some time and has just exploded ibn a rather elctrifying way.
Two things worth reflecting on – both relating to Sheffield. The first is the new report by Christina Beatty and Steve Fothergill[i] from Sheffield Hallam University which examines the legacy of leaving the old industrial bits of our country to rot. It shows how the destruction of industrial jobs has fuelled spending on welfare benefits and in turn intensified the budgetary problems of successive governments. Major job losses since the early 1980s were heaviest in the central belt of Scotland, the north-east of England, along a line that stretches along the M62 from Liverpool to Hull, and extending southwards down the M1 into the Midlands. Unsurprisingly a similar distribution for incapacity benefits, tax credits and projected losses from welfare cuts follows this map.
As manufacturing declined, so the financial sector grew more powerful with Gordon Brown noting recently that the UK has in effect become two countries, with the prosperous south-east decoupling from a permanently struggling north. Indeed the similarities between parts of our country and the USA rust belt are all to clear to see.
This is not a new phenomenon but something rooted in the destruction of jobs decades ago and why some of us were campaigning so hard from the late 1990s to have a robust regional policy in place, alongside proper devolution of powers and money.
Instead successive Chancellors, and the Treasury, have misdiagnosed the problems of “worklessness” and high welfare spend and ended up punishing those already hit by decades of lack of investment from governments of any sort. This is now becoming our rust belt – and South Yorkshire is included in this – and if we want to see the evidence of this then it’s worth reading this report.
The second thing that happened here in Sheffield was last weeks annual SPERI lecture given by Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. In it she called for a shift away from austerity and a move towards major investment in jobs and public services. In a wide ranging speech she talked about how the EU referendum result presents us all with major challenges. Obviously Nicola Sturgeons primary concern is to protect Scotland’s interests but this was a sweeping lecture touching on a number of themes and putting down some real markers for the forthcoming autumn statement from the Government.[ii]
Like the Beatty and Fothergill report the basic message is the same – the roots of what we have just witnessed this year, both here and in the USA, should come as no surprise and have had their roots in actions and activities over the last two decades. Work now has to benefit everyone and inclusive growth is a matter of basic morality as well as being based on sound economic principles.
In Scotland the Fair Work Convention is articulating this with a vision that by 2025, people in Scotland will have a world-leading working life where fair work drives success, wellbeing and prosperity for individuals, businesses, organisations and society. Here in Sheffield the Our Fair City Campaign has similar aspirations through the work being done on Fair Money, Fair Futures and Fair Work http://www.ourfaircity.co.uk/.
The recent elections have if nothing else exposed the deep gulf between the lives people live and what the policy makers are giving them. The questions is now how political leaders are going to respond. Much will rest over here on the next 12 months – the autumn statement, Northern Powerhouse, Brexit, the reality of an Industrial strategy. People in the North are showing both what the problem is, and offering solutions – its time now for leaders to step up to the plate and grasp some of this.
As we enter the fifth month since the historic referendum vote on the EU the continued debate about the actual details (such as the triggering of Article 50 or whether we are staying in the Customs Union) is just adding the confusion. We know we have had a referendum and we know the result – but that is about the extent of any certainty.
So whilst we are all left pondering what Brexit really means nationally we really need to reflect what it means here for us in Sheffield.
Whilst the referendum result in June in Sheffield matched the result nationally for some of us that in itself was quite a shock. Sheffield, City of Steel, has relied heavily on EU money since the early 1990s helping to rebalance the economy after the demise of the steel and coal industry. Some £1 billion has come into South Yorkshire from EU funds and much of that has ended up in Sheffield – through job creation programmes and things like redeveloping the city centre, road transport schemes and the Advanced Manufacturing Park. So it did seem rather short sighted, ungrateful even, to give the EU a thumbs down after the bail out.
But it’s not just about funding. Sheffield is undisputedly a University City. With some 58,000 students at the two universities the student population accounts for over 10% of the overall population (currently at 563,749 residents according to the latest figures from 2014). Sheffield Hallam is the 6th largest university in the UK, with 31,508; the University of Sheffield nearly 26,000. Add to that the 16,000 students who enrol at Sheffield College and you have a vibrant and young city population – but one heavily focused on post -16 education and learning. And we know that young people – when they voted – voted overwhelmingly to Remain.
In the end just 6,000 votes decided the outcome in Sheffield but it still seems at odds for a city with a clear bulge in the population in the 20-24 age group and with a significant increase in the level of international migration recently.
From the universities point of view it is also an outcome they did not want. Universities in particular are global institutions – with students from all round the world studying at UK universities with active international collaborative research and funding projects in many departments. But whilst the outreach is global the most beneficial relationship has been with the EU – since 2007 the University of Sheffield has participated in 353 projects with a total value of €1.087M of which the University received £164.5M.
The importance placed on Europe explains why the White Rose Consortium (a strategic partnership between Leeds, Sheffield and York universities) launched a new office in Brussels earlier this year to influence ER research policy.
The day after the referendum result Professor Keith Burnett, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield said “Yes I am gutted that this is the decision which has been reached, and certainly not only for myself…. I wonder what [staff and students from abroad] must be feeling, and think of what they have already said to me – practical questions about what this means for their daily lives, work opportunities and residency.
Academics engaged in projects with other EU universities drawing on EU funding wonder about the future of their work. What of Erasmus and other kinds of educational exchange? Brexit may have other consequences too, on our economy or on the investment choices of our major commercial partners. It could mean further tightening of immigration rules.”
The uncertainly within the sector has massive repercussions for Sheffield as a city. Universities are business incubators and are regarded as one of the essential pillars to support a growing local economy. Add to that a graduate pool that chooses to stay in the University City and you have a massive accelerator to growth.
But for Sheffield the role of the universities is seen as central to determining the city’s future. Since the decline in manufacturing Sheffield has fallen back onto the public sector (NHS, local government and the universities) to provide local jobs. Between 1971 and 2008, the manufacturing sector in Sheffield declined by 74 percent, shedding 120,000 jobs – 52 percent of the jobs created in Sheffield between 1995 and 2008 were in the public sector. Increasingly it is the universities that have provided some optimism for future growth. And it is very evident, both in their physical presence in the heart of the city, and by the active role the universities play in leadership roles in the city.
This is no better seen than by looking at the flagship Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre ( AMRC). Established in 2001 the AMRC was a £15 million collaboration between the University of Sheffield and aerospace giant Boeing, with support from Yorkshire Forward and the European Regional Development Fund. The expansion has been rapid and in December 2015 the AMRC launched Factory 2050, a cutting edge advanced manufacturing research facility. This along with the growing cluster of advanced manufacturing and technology firms around Sheffield and Rotherham has led to a proposed “innovation triangle” that will connect the AMRC and wider Advanced Manufacturing Park with businesses in the Don Valley and Sheffield city centre.
This is not to claim that the research that the University of Sheffield undertakes is the only game in town for Sheffield – look at some of the remarkable things that have come out of the Cultural Industries Quarter – but its role in driving growth and in particular addressing and meeting the challenges of skills mismatch has been vital for Sheffield’s regeneration.
Chris Husbands, the vice-chancellor at Sheffield Hallam, says that his researchers are already seeing significant effects. He told Newsnight on July 5th: “Since the referendum result, of the 12 projects that we have people working on for submission for an end-of-August deadline, on four of those projects researchers in other European countries have said that they no longer feel that the UK should be a partner because they don’t have confidence in what the future is going to hold.”
How the universities’ will positon themselves internationally in a post Brexit world is yet to be determined. Whilst exchanges like Erasmus are important, both universities have maintained a wider recruiting, exchange and research portfolio that means that they are not over reliant on European students or funding. Yet the degree of uncertainty for the sector and for research is destabilising. This against continuing uncertainty for the UK economy does not help places like Sheffield given the central role of the HE sector as a stimulus to the local and wider economy.
As Chris Husbands said in that same interview it is the uncertainty that is most worrying – “Leaving the EU doesn’t necessarily mean being outside the European research network…. And it may be that there’s where we end up.
“But it’s not where we are now and in that uncertainty people are making decisions about what might happen – and like all people planning for the future, they’re planning on a worst-case scenario.”
Round Here 