A CONSERVATIVE MP has confirmed he is in the running to become the first North East mayor.

Paul Howell, the Conservative MP for Sedgefield, told the Local Democracy Reporting Service on Tuesday (October 24) that he is putting himself forward to be his party’s candidate for the historic election next May.

Labour’s candidate for the top job is the current Northumbria Police and Crime Commissioner, Kim McGuinness.

The sitting North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll also plans to run as an independent candidate, having quit Labour this summer following a bitter row over him being barred from the party’s selection contest.

The regional mayor role is being created under a new £4.2bn devolution deal for the North East, which is due to be ratified in the next few months and will bring with it new funding and decision-making powers.

They will represent a population of around two million people stretching across Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, and County Durham.

Mr Howell told a meeting of the cross-party All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Leamside Line, the mothballed railway which local leaders are campaigning to have reopened, that he could be in the frame to be the Conservative Party mayoral candidate – and that their selection could be announced by the end of November.

He later confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that “there is a process going on and I will be putting my hat into the ring”.

Mr Howell, who has been the MP in Tony Blair’s old constituency since 2019, pledged to deliver a “holistic” vision for boosting the entire region’s economy, business, and infrastructure.

He added: “The Leamside Line is a large and obvious priority for me. But I am cognisant that there are other transport issues in the area. Looking at the great work Ben Houchen has done in the Tees Valley attracting business to the region, the North East mayoralty needs to shout in the same way that the Tees Valley does and get a cohesive vision for the region in terms of inward investment.”

Mr Howell expressed concern that the two candidates confirmed for next year’s mayoral race so far, Ms McGuinness and Mr Driscoll, are both former Newcastle city councillors and said the mayor “needs to be more broad than that in their appreciation of the region.”

Some sceptics of the regional mayor proposal over the years have been fearful of the figurehead being too Newcastle-centric.

The Leamside Line has been a topic of controversy lately, after the Government dropped a pledge to reopen it less than 24 hours after listing it among the projects that would be funded following the scrapping of HS2’s northern leg.

Ministers have since said that a £1.8bn pot of transport funding to be devolved to the future mayor could be used to part-fund the restoration of the disused railway, which runs from Pelaw in Gateshead to Tursdale in County Durham.