Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill [Lords]

Why, then, are the Government insisting that the north-east should have an elected mayor before getting any package of devolution, despite being quite happy to give Cornwall devolution? Will the Minister give the people of the north-east a say in whether they get a regional elected mayor? If we had imposed regional assemblies, he and others in the Tory party regionally would have argued vociferously against it and we would have been pilloried.