Your guide to the Labour Selection for South Yorkshire Mayor

Hello, welcome to your guide to the selection of Labour’s candidate for South Yorkshire Mayor.

After interviewing candidates on Monday, the National Executive Committee-led panel has decided that Rachael Blake, Oliver Coppard, Lewis Dagnall and Jayne Dunn will appear on the ballot paper. Voting opens Wednesday 5 January and runs until 26 January.

Background

In September, Dan Jarvis MP announced he would stand down as South Yorkshire Mayor in May. Jarvis, who also serves as Member of Parliament for Barnsley Central, had been elected as Mayor of Sheffield City Region in May 2018 and said at the time that being Mayor and a MP was not a long-term option. Jarvis is pretty nailed on for a senior role in Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet once his successor has been elected.

Originally the Mayor (originally of Sheffield City Region Combined Authority but now South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority) did not receive a salary as the devolution deal had not been negotiated. That will likely be Jarvis’ biggest achievement from his time as Mayor, having negotiated the deal between the four local authorities (who notoriously like to disagree with each other about, well pretty much anything).

The Nomination Process

Constituency Labour Parties, Trade Unions and affiliates were able to make up to 3 nominations (at least one of the three had to be a woman, at least one a BAME candidate). The first thing to note is that Sheffield candidates dominated the long-list (and the short-list), particularly Sheffield Central, where half the candidates are from (the short list is 3/4 Central members).

Here are some takeaways from the nomination process: Rachael Blake (Don Valley CLP) came away with the most nominations overall and the most CLP nominations, including at least one from each area of South Yorkshire. Oliver Coppard (Sheffield Central CLP) was very close behind receiving the most affiliate nominations, including a solo nomination from UNISON. Jayne Dunn (Sheffield Central CLP) received the most Union nominations, gaining support from unions across the party’s political spectrum — Community, CWU, FBU, GMB & USDAW. Mazher Iqbal (Sheffield South East CLP) was the only candidate from Sheffield to get CLP backing from all four parts of South Yorkshire. Lewis Dagnall (Sheffield Central CLP) received support from big union backers, including GMB and Unite, however more important to his campaign (which is centred on transport) from TSSA and ASLEF. Finally, Dominic Jones (Barnsley Central CLP) received two nominations and a lot of respect for putting himself forward, he might not have come away with lots of nominations but it takes a lot to put yourself up for public office, especially as a young person! He’s one to watch in the near future!

Of those the NEC and REC Panel have selected four candidates to be on the ballot paper.

Who can you vote for in January?

Rachael Blake — A senior Doncaster councillor who has responsibility for Children’s Social Care, Communities and Equalities, she has over 30 years’ experience in the public, private and voluntary sector. She has the distinct advantage of being the only candidate not from Sheffield.

Oliver Coppard — Former Hallam Parliamentary Candidate (2015) and current head of Campaigns Plus, a consultancy he founded. More recently he ran the local election campaign in Broomhill and Sharrow. He’s a rising star of the centrist wing but is relatively popular amongst members with a wide variety of viewpoints.

Lewis Dagnall — Former Councillor in Gleadless Valley from 2015 until 2021 when he stood down, the seat was lost to the Greens despite a swing away from them. Lewis is the most prominent left candidate on the ballot paper. He stood down as a cabinet member in protest over the governance review.

Jayne Dunn — long standing Sheffield councillor representing Southey ward, an area with high levels of deprivation. She has a compelling story and has held a variety of cabinet posts, such as housing and currently education, families and children.

The Issues

Buses — the big issue, especially given the mess that the current transport system in South Yorkshire is in. Uncertainty about support for bus services after April is likely to lead to reduced services just as voters head to the polls. There has been growing frustration about South Yorkshire’s approach to public transport in the Labour Party and the public. The sentiment is so obvious that every candidate has supported much more public control over buses and trams. Coppard supports public control through a London-style franchising system, as does Dunn, however she says she will keep every option on the table to fix the broken bus service. Blake and Dagnall have both said they would bring the service back into public ownership.

Climate Crisis — The powers of the Mayor might be more focussed on transport and skills, but there will no doubt be a significant amount of voters who want to know how candidates will ensure South Yorkshire is playing a proactive role in tackling climate change and building a green economy. Candidates approaches range from being a driving force for a green industrial revolution (Dagnall and Dunn have similar language around this) to holding ‘climate assemblies’ to develop policies to get to net-zero (Coppard).

Skills and education — The Mayor actually has some teeth here, controlling a £41m adult education budget and commissioning across the region. Candidates approaches to this include building local partnerships (Dagnall), creating a ‘fully funded Job Guarantee Scheme’ (Blake), protecting the union learning fund and build a workers education scheme (Coppard), and ‘up-skilling’ by prioritising re-training apprenticeships and technical education (Dunn).

Inequality and Poverty — South Yorkshire has some of the highest levels of deprivation, low-wages and health inequality. In Sheffield for example Hallam is the 8th least deprived constituency in the UK, while neighbouring constituency Brightside and Hillsborough has the 12th highest rate of deprivation. As a regional leader the Mayor will play a leading role in targeting services to tackle poverty and inequality. Plans range from creating economic action plans made by and for different communities (Dunn), making communities feel safe, included and valued (Blake), community wealth building by getting big companies to reinvest in local areas (Coppard) and promoting cooperatives and local procurement to put people before profit (Dagnall).

The Voting Process

Candidates now have a month to convince members to vote for them. Although, with the Christmas period falling slap bang in the middle of this window, it will realistically only be a couple of weeks of campaigning. Ballots will arrive on 5 January 2022 and members in South Yorkshire have until 26 January to vote.

The Labour Party will organise local hustings, and CLPs are invited to organise hustings in collaboration with the Regional Office.

Candidates will receive a membership list with names, addresses, phone numbers and emails (as well as details on contact preferences). There will be a limit put on how many emails each candidate can send to all members to be determined by the Returning Officer, this will be at most five per candidate.

There is a spending cap, with no candidate able to spend more than £5,000 + 50p per member.

Anything else?

We don’t think so, if you have any questions head over to @SheffLabourNews and ask us! We’re hoping to speak to each candidate and will be posting more about what each candidate stands for in the months ahead.

An earlier version of this article said that all candidates supported public ownership, this has been amended to include more details on candidates positions on buses.