Opinion: ‘This mayoral experiment is failing’

CALLING FOR ACTION: Councillor Daren Hale

By Councillor Daren Hale, Labour group leader at Hull City Council

People in Hull and the East Riding have recently been shocked and dismayed to see reporting in The Observer regarding the internal culture in Hull & East Yorkshire Combined Authority (HEYCA).

We have heard allegations from former members of HEYCA staff about Mayor Luke Campbell’s personal conduct, for which he has apparently been subject to police investigation.

The Observer has also reported allegations that members of Campbell’s staff have engaged in racist abuse, threats of violence and homophobic insults, and that confidential complaints about this behaviour were shared with the Mayor’s political advisor Lia Nici (the former Tory MP for Grimsby).

These allegations may be shocking, but it is hard to say they are surprising. Behaviour like this fits with what we already know about the political culture of Farage’s Reform UK, and it is saddening to see this poisoning our local politics too.

But these recent allegations, shocking as they are, raise a wider question about the internal culture, and the governance arrangements, of HEYCA.

We know that HEYCA has recently started recruiting for its chief executive, on a salary of £170,000. It is not particularly interesting that a combined authority should hire a well-paid chief executive – all others do the same. But what is notable is that the position has remained vacant since Campbell was elected Mayor 18 months ago.

Efforts to find a willing chief executive so far have failed, and those holding the post on an interim basis have come and gone. It was not until June this year, 11 months since the election, that HEYCA finally managed to hire six chief officers – at an overall recruitment cost of £1.17m. One London-based headhunting firm invoiced the authority for almost £400,000 for the privilege of its services.

This might sound like political nitpicking over staff costs, but this rolling internal chaos at the combined authority since May 2025 has meant one thing – that HEYCA, and our Mayor, Luke Campbell, have been absent from leadership.

The creation of the combined authority was meant to be an opportunity for Hull and East Yorkshire to take a place on the national stage and have a Mayor who could advocate for our local people and local economy, like other Mayors have done successfully elsewhere.

Labour in Hull disagreed with the creation of the combined authority on the geography proposed – but we accepted that, once it was created, whoever was elected Mayor would have an important role to play in leading our local economy. Campbell has completely failed to play that role.

UNDER PRESSURE: Hull and East Yorkshire Mayor Luke Campbell

HEYCA board meetings are being cancelled for lack of business. Last week, Campbell failed to turn up to a meeting at 10 Downing Street between Andy Burnham and the English Mayors. At a moment when the Government is preparing to shift huge amounts of power and funding to Mayors as part of its long-overdue devolution agenda, this absence is as unforgivable as it is hard to understand.

This is part of a pattern of behaviour we’ve seen from Campbell, and Reform, over the last 18 months. The Mayor pulled out of the ‘White Rose Agreement’ with the three other Yorkshire mayors in August last year. The agreement was a pledge for all of Yorkshire’s Mayors to work more closely on investment, transport and other issues. Campbell refused to sign up to it because it included a commitment to net-zero – and a year later, wildfires during the summer are rife, and Yorkshire is in a state of drought.

This absence extends to transport too. Campbell has been mostly quiet on the issue of public control of bus services since he was elected, even though we know the franchising model, which is available to all Mayors, has already been successful elsewhere. His Reform colleagues on Hull City Council even teamed up with the Liberal Democrats to wreck Labour’s call for franchising of bus services in September.

We have seen a lot of handwringing from other political parties about this dire state of affairs. Mike Ross, the Liberal Democrat leader of Hull City Council, and his Tory counterpart in the East Riding, Anne Handley, have recently written to the local government minister asking for an “urgent meeting” about HEYCA’s leadership and direction.

Given the fact that Ross and Handley both ran unsuccessfully in the mayoral election last year, it is hard to see this as anything other than posturing. Both possibly still harbour their own mayoral ambitions.

But more to the point, both are members of HEYCA’s executive board. What have they done with their power in that position to raise these concerns and change things themselves? If what they have done hasn’t worked, why haven’t they resigned from that board?

They actively blocked Labour, the second-largest party in Hull and the East Riding at the time, from having any influence on that executive board. The organisational set-up at HEYCA was created on their watch, and they cannot pretend to have no responsibility.

We cannot question Luke Campbell’s democratic legitimacy. He was elected Mayor, fair and square. But we can question his total lack of leadership, and the total chaos unfolding at the combined authority under his watch.

This isn’t just a problem with the Mayor, but with the entire HEYCA organisation. It isn’t fit for purpose. It isn’t working.

This mayoral experiment is failing. The Government needs to do the sensible thing, and step in to appoint commissioners to sort this mess out, before any more damage can be done. As Labour leader in Hull, that is what I am calling for.

A sceptical public was told that the creation of a combined authority was the chance to reinvigorate our local economy. That chance has now been thrown away.