There are phrases in official use that linger on long after the reality they were meant to describe has changed. They remain on forms, in datasets and in government documents because nobody has ever stopped asking whether they still make sense. ‘Yorkshire and the Humber’ is one of those phrases.
But the question is now being raised by the Alliance for Yorkshire, a non-party group bringing together individuals and organisations who believe that Yorkshire should be recognised, governed and measured as the coherent region it actually is. The Alliance for Yorkshire exists to promote practical steps that strengthen Yorkshire’s voice in regional decision-making and to encourage collaboration across the region’s political and civic landscape, regardless of party affiliation.
The campaign to redefine Yorkshire
As part of this work, we have begun a campaign to ask a straightforward question: why is the Yorkshire and Humber regional title still used when it no longer reflects how this part of England is actually governed, planned, or understood by the people who live here?
We have written to the Home Office, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the four Yorkshire mayors and copied in our local MP, Tom Gordon, asking whether this designation has ever been formally reviewed. Because when you look at today’s map of governance, it simply does not match the name still being used in Whitehall.
The official region known as Yorkshire and the Humber was originally a statistical convenience. It grouped Yorkshire together with the Humber estuary and two northern Lincolnshire authorities. At the time, that made administrative sense. Today, it does not.
Yorkshire identity
North Lincolnshire and Northeast Lincolnshire no longer sit within any Yorkshire-based strategic framework. They are part of the Greater Lincolnshire Combined Authority, with their own priorities, leadership and planning arrangements. Lincolnshire now plans and lives with Lincolnshire.
Meanwhile, Yorkshire’s four combined authorities work collaboratively under what is commonly referred to as the White Rose Agreement, recognising a shared economic geography and identity rooted firmly in Yorkshire. Yorkshire now plans with Yorkshire.
Yet, the statistics and regional data used by the government still bundle these different areas together as if nothing has changed.
This is not about branding or sentiment. It is about how data informs policy. Funding decisions, economic assessments, deprivation measures, and transport planning all rely on regional statistics. When those statistics describe an area that no longer exists in practice, the conclusions drawn from them are inevitably distorted.
A name that outlived its purpose
When ministers and civil servants look at figures labelled ‘Yorkshire and the Humber’, they assume they are looking at a coherent region. They are not. They are looking at a statistical relic that takes in places which no longer share governance, priorities or planning frameworks.
For a region like Yorkshire, which has long experienced disparities in transport funding and infrastructure investment compared to the South of England, this is incredibly significant. If the data used to judge Yorkshire’s needs is geographically muddled, the case for fair treatment becomes harder to argue.
The Alliance for Yorkshire believes the answer is straightforward – the official regional title should now simply be ‘Yorkshire’. That would reflect the reality of current governance, align with how Yorkshire’s leaders already work together and ensure that statistics used to shape policy actually describe the place they are meant to serve.
Nobody in Harrogate, Hull, Sheffield or Leeds says they live in ‘Yorkshire and the Humber’. They say Yorkshire. And in Grimsby and Scunthorpe, they now look to Lincolnshire, not Yorkshire.
The map has changed. The name has not.
Time to update the map
This is a rare opportunity for the government to modernise something at no cost. No new institutions are required. No funding is needed. Just a willingness to review a label that has quietly outlived its usefulness.
We have asked the government to tell us whether such a review has ever taken place and, if not, why not? Because if devolution is meant to reflect real places and real communities, then the language of government should keep pace with reality.
For Yorkshire, this is about recognition. It is about ensuring that when decisions are made about Yorkshire, they are based on data that describes Yorkshire; it is about asking a simple question that has gone unaddressed for too long.
Why are we still calling this region by a name that no longer exists in real terms?
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