Tuesday 9th January 2018

(6 years, 3 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Lee Rowley Portrait Lee Rowley (North East Derbyshire) (Con)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard. I congratulate the hon. Member for Barnsley Central (Dan Jarvis) on securing this debate. I feel slightly like an imposter at the party, because I come from the best county in the country—Derbyshire—so I am looking across the border at this issue.

I want to make one very brief point. The Sheffield city region proposal, which has been part of this discussion for a number of years, has at times included elements of Derbyshire. Quite a number of us over the border in Derbyshire have had significant reservations about the proposal for many years. We were pleased when Chesterfield Borough Council finally withdrew from the Sheffield city region a number of months ago.

I will not take up more time than the minute that I have, given the obvious importance of this issue to all colleagues across the ridings of Yorkshire and their real passion. I just want to say that Derbyshire is and has always been different from Yorkshire, and it does not want to participate in a Sheffield city region if that continues.