As we head towards the General Election, Labour has been vocal about its support for devolution at a senior level – even if the message has not quite filtered through the whole cabinet (see Andy Burnham’s response to devolved health budgets for details).

But while the shadow Labour team talk a good game, the coalition government has just quietly got on with it. Even in the final few weeks of the Parliament, the Government has continued its love affair with the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ in the final Budget before the election.

With the economy growing – and growing faster in the North – you could be forgiven for believing that handing economic growth over to local government was a good thing. Either way, the chancellor is pushing ahead, with a combined authority deal for West Yorkshire and more City Deals announced in his speech.