The West Yorkshire Combined Authority is meeting with ministers today to start thrashing out a devolution deal for the Leeds City Region.

Treasury minister Simon Clarke has convened a meeting with the leaders of Leeds, Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Wakefield Councils, alongside Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, the exchequer secretary, Mr Clarke, said he was ‘determined to level-up opportunities so that all communities… get their fair share of our future prosperity’.

Mr Berry said the Government was ‘absolutely committed to transferring power, money and responsibility from Whitehall and putting it back in the hands of the people’.

Writing in The MJ this week, Leeds City Council chief executive Tom Riordan said local and national politicians and officials have ‘worked on this conundrum’ of devolution for five years and were finally close to a solution.