Caroline Spelman must be wishing she hadn't asked this Parliamentary Question on city-regions earlier this week...
"City Regions
Mrs. Spelman: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government when he expects to announce the first pilot city regions. [282392]
29 Jun 2009 : Column 25W
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in Budget 2009 Greater Manchester and Leeds city region as city-region pilots."
Shame it was only a Written Question & Answer. An Oral Q&A in the House would have been v funny.
Speaking as a big fan of city-regions, I do realise they aren't the most exciting thing. But Caroline really should have spotted that Budget announcement about Greater Manchester and Leeds city-region. Or maybe Caroline has done us all a favour, by publicising a little-known fact.
Thanks to David Ottewell for spotting this.
Funny - the FT's Brian Groom picked up on this today - see "Wakey wakey" at the end of this:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e498b42e-6a5f-11de-ad04-00144feabdc0.html
Posted by: Dermot | July 07, 2009 at 07:44 PM