DO we need a Mayor of Yorkshire? That’s a question that is doing the rounds again, thanks mostly to the enthusiasm of senior Labour politician and West Yorkshire MP Jon Trickett.

The arguments for such a role can sound persuasive. The North-South divide is not narrowing, despite the Government’s talk about building a Northern Powerhouse to re-direct economic growth from London to the regions. Devolution is part of this movement. There will be elections this year to establish directly elected mayors for six of the UK’s largest urban areas, including Sheffield.

Plans to hold a devolution referendum in Yorkshire in 2004 were shelved, ostensibly over postal ballot problems, but in reality because the then ruling Labour government anticipated the public would not support it.

But we are living in a different political landscape now and Brexit has shown the country more divided than ever. Just this week, speaking in the House of Lords, the Archbishop of York, raised the prospect of a Brexit settlement benefitting the North and calling for more devolution from the south to help the economy.

York is a successful city and is proud to be at the heart of Yorkshire. It has its own Lord Mayor, second only to the Lord Mayor of London in precedence. Our Lord Mayor has an important ceremonial role to play and that is something no Mayor of Yorkshire could, or should replace.

Yorkshire is a vast area, with a population the size of a small country: could a Mayor of Yorkshire really speak for all of us?