Today I chaired a very upbeat and constructive meeting of the APPG for Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire held outside Westminster in one of the City of York’s buildings for the first time. I am confident that we will soon reach agreement for our own Yorkshire devolution deal. The Sheffield City deal, which will include Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham and which was agreed in 2012 is now expected to go ahead despite setbacks after Doncaster and Barnsley said they would prefer to be part of a One Yorkshire deal. The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Sajid Javid, is negotiating a compromise which will allow the South Yorkshire deal to go ahead for a four year term, with a metro Mayor elected in May 2018 on the understanding that any one authority can pull out at the end of this term if they wish to. Once this has been agreed the rest of Yorkshire can start our own conversation about how we would like to go forward with our own devolution. The meeting was very well attended by council leaders across Yorkshire, Chief Executives and business leaders as well as MPs and Members of the House of Lords. I was very pleased with the positive tone of the meeting. It was clear that we are united in our support for this compromise deal for South Yorkshire, which will then enable us to move forward. This is good news for all counties of Yorkshire because, without our own devolution agreement, we risk being left further behind other regions and, worse, are missing out on much needed investment in infrastructure, skills and broadband connectivity which would enable us to increase productivity, create new jobs and boost the economy across the whole of Yorkshire.