Mr Deputy Speaker, in this Budget we make major further advances in the devolution of power within England too.
It was less than two years ago that I called for the creation of strong elected mayors to help us build a Northern Powerhouse.
Since then, powerful elected mayors have been agreed for Manchester, Liverpool, Tees Valley, Newcastle and Sheffield.
Over half of the population of the Northern Powerhouse will be able to elect a mayor accountable to them next year.

Today I can tell the House that my RHF the Justice Secretary and I are transferring new powers over the criminal justice system to Greater Manchester.

And I can also announce to the House that today, for the first time, we have reached agreement to establish new elected mayors in our English counties and southern cities too.

We’ve agreed a single powerful East Anglia combined authority, headed up by an elected Mayor and almost a billion pounds of new investment.

We’ve also agreed a new West of England mayoral authority – and they too will see almost a billion pounds invested locally.

And the authorities of Greater Lincolnshire will have new powers, new funding and a new mayor.
North, South, East and West – the devolution revolution is taking hold.

The Global Parliament of Mayors is an unprecedented new experiment in democratic global governance platform by, for, and of cities. Mayors from cities large and small, North and South, developed and emerging, will convene in September 2016 to identify and pursue in common the public goods of citizens around the world. For the first time, building on extant urban networks, the GPM will deploy collective urban political power manifesting the right of cities to govern themselves, as well as the responsibility to enact viable, cross-border solutions to global challenges.

4. The right to clean air and water and to a greenhouse environment with minimal (eventually zero) carbon emissions, which translates into the right to take action to assure a safe and sustainable environment, regardless of the action or inaction of other levels of government.

5. The right to residential dignity: that is to say, the right to identity papers (visas, identity cards) conferring access to schools, hospitals, transportation and jobs on the condition of law-abiding behaviour, for all residents, regardless of their regional or national immigration status or the manner in which they entered the country in which their city finds itself. In practice, this entails a right to a "city visa" or "urban ID," which while it cannot by itself convey residential or civil rights at the national level, can normalize a de facto local status; and in time perhaps constitute a 'road to citizenship' at the national level.