David Blunkett MP suggests "Yorkshire Parliament"

Yorkshire should be given its own "White Rose Parliament" with its own budget, MP David Blunkett has said.

Mr Blunkett said using the same funding formula applied to Wales - which has a devolved budget - Yorkshire would be entitled to a £24bn budget.

"You put great store by devolving decision-making to ordinary people," he told Prime Minister David Cameron.

Mr Cameron said the government had already got rid of a "centralised" approach that Mr Blunkett was part of.

Mr Blunkett, a Labour former Cabinet minister and the MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, made the suggestion during prime minister's questions in the House of Commons.

He said: "Can you think of one single reason why the people of Yorkshire shouldn't determine their own priorities?

"And, mischievously, one reason why the people of Yorkshire shouldn't have their own White Rose Parliament?"

Mr Cameron said: "What we are doing is we are saying to councils in Yorkshire, as up and down the country, 'We are getting rid of the ring fences, we are giving you the power to spend your money in the way that you choose'."

He added: "We have got rid of the bossy, centralised interfering approach that I'm afraid you were rather part of."