Government given OK to deny Yorkshire millions in Euro funding
Supreme Court judges have today ruled, that whilst Government cuts to South Yorkshire’s European Funding are “unfair”, they are not illegal which has denied South Yorkshire £50 million in European Funding.
Seven Supreme Court judges heard the appeal which was brought by nine Merseyside and South Yorkshire authorities back in October 2014.
Yorkshire Euro MP Linda McAvan and Wentworth and Dearne MP John Healey have been campaigning with local authorities to challenge the Government’s proposed cuts since Business Secretary Vince Cable announced his intentions in June 2013.
Linda McAvan MEP said;
“To hear that 3 out of the 7 Supreme Court Justices believed that South Yorkshire has lost out unfairly through a flawed allocation process, with one Justice describing the Government’s cuts to South Yorkshire as “manifestly inappropriate” is galling.”
The text published today suggests that one Lord changed his mind towards the end of the decision making process, demonstrating just how painfully close our local authorities came to overturning the Government.
John Healey MP said:
“Linda McAvan and I have led the campaign to protect South Yorkshire from these unfair and unjustifiable government cuts. We went to the European Commission in 2013 to make them aware of our concerns and have taken our case to government Ministers too.
In the last weeks of this Parliament, the government have got away with doing damage to our region that will be felt years from now. They may have won on a point of law, but the government’s decision to divert £50m of funding from our area to richer parts of the UK remains an outrage.”
The Government proposed to cut 61% of South Yorkshire’s funding, whilst limiting cuts to the devolved administrations to just 5%.
The Highlands and Islands area of Scotland has an identical GDP to South Yorkshire, at 84% of the EU average, yet it is set to receive €478 per head – more than four times the €117 per person allocated to South Yorkshire.
More affluent areas such as Cheshire will be allocated €157 Euros per head.
• A statement on the verdict from the Supreme Court can be found here