MP Mary Glindon column: A new recipe for regional prosperity

The aim is to allow “leaders who live and breathe the region” to determine our future.

Civil servants in Whitehall and Ministers in Westminster don’t always know best.

Decisions are best when they are devolved. We could have a new regional elected mayor from May 2024.

The government has agreed with seven local leaders to pass on powers on skills, transport and housing to local authorities that serve two million people living in Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and County Durham. This includes North Tyneside.

The new body will control a £1.44 billion investment fund over 30 years to be invested by the North East to drive growth. It will have powers to better improve local skills to ensure these meet the needs of the local economy.

This will include devolution of Adult Education and input into the Local Skills Improvement Plan.

There will be a Sustainable Transport Settlement of up to £563 million until 2026/27.

There will also be an additional pot of £17.4 million to support building new homes on brownfield land.

The proposal will now go out for public consultation. Having spoken in detail to our Mayor, Norma Redfern, I am convinced it is a good deal that we should maximise as much as possible.

It's sometimes said that too many cooks spoil the broth but on this occasion, many contributed to a new start that enables us to do better together.

But structures or recipes are not the end of the story. Policies and ingredients as well as skill and passion are what makes them work best.

How to find the best combination of social justice and economic dynamism, for instance, will be the meat and two veg of competing political menus in the run up to various elections in the coming year.