A leading opposition politician has said devolution deals that benefit areas like Bolton while ignoring others are ‘offensive and wrong.’

Wigan MP and shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy used Bolton as an example of a town which benefited from controlling its own transport policy to a greater extent thanks to being part of Greater Manchester.

But, speaking at last week’s Labour conference, Ms Nandy said this was unfair to similar towns which were not part of metropolitan areas that had benefited from such deals.

She said: “It offends me deeply that young people in Bolton now have the right to get on a bus to the places, the apprenticeships that they need, and to see friends and family because some government minister decided he liked the cut of Andy Burnham’s jib.

“But yet in Barnsley those young people don’t have those same rights and those same powers.

“It’s offensive and it’s wrong and we are going to set that right.”

She added: “We have got this situation where the Chancellor sits in Whitehall and draws lines on a map and he labels some places functional economic areas, which presumably means other places are not.

“In any democracy worth its salt we have the right to choose our own governance arrangements

“He creates chances for some places and choices in those places and not for others and then tells communities they should be grateful and they should accept it.

“In any democracy worth its salt we have the right to choose our own governance arrangements.”

The Wigan MP also criticised the Government’s approach to levelling up, which she said resulted in small pots of money being handed out “Hunger Games-style for mayors and councils to compete over crumbs from the table”, as she put it.

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Ms Nandy claimed that instead of making decisions from Whitehall, if it is returned to power her party would local areas, like Bolton, Wigan, Greater Manchester and elsewhere to list the powers they needed and these would be ‘repatriated.’

She said: “Our political arrangements, our governance arrangements surely have to reflect our own sense of identity.

“They have to reflect economic geography.”