Engagements

Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Prime Minister – in the House of Commons at 11:30 am on 18 November 2015.

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Photo of David Cameron David Cameron The Prime Minister, Leader of the Conservative Party 11:30, 18 November 2015

I will look carefully at what my hon. Friend says, but I think this does go to a larger point, which is that we are currently changing the way our country is run. These big devolution deals, first to Greater Manchester but now, with the announcements yesterday, to Liverpool and to the west midlands, mean that we are going to have powerful metro mayors who are accountable to local people for the decisions they make. That is a very direct form of accountability and that is why we can be confident of devolving health and social care to those authorities. For too long, our country has been too centralised. The great cities of Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool—and soon to be Leeds, I hope—will benefit from these massive devolution deals, but if we devolve the power and we devolve the money, we have to devolve the trust and the accountability too.