A blueprint to boost the economic might of cities in northern England has won support from David Cameron.
The Royal Society's City Growth Commission report says cities such as Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds and Sheffield should set their own tax, immigration and infrastructure policies in line with Scotland getting greater powers.
The report says the plan could boost UK productivity by 5% annually and increase economic growth by £79bn a year by 2030.
The commission's chair, former Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, told Sky News that while devolving powers from Westminster was long overdue, the critical issue was solving a "hopeless" infrastructure.
Among the proposals was an Oyster Card for the north, similar to London's integrated transport card, a high-speed tube system and super-fast broadband.
"It's not just about devolving power. More boldness from other authorities including central government is needed," he said.
"Ask anybody that ever contemplates going from Hull to Liverpool or Leeds to Manchester or the other way, our modern infrastructure is just hopeless here compared with many other parts of the world.
"Controversially, as we concluded pretty early on, doing something to give a state-of-the-art infrastructure between those close geographic northern cities is probably way more important for them than HS2 in terms of the economic connectivity of the people in those cities."
The devolution aspect - dubbed "devo met" by the commission - could see new powers overseen by a directly elected mayor.
Mr Cameron welcomed what he called the think tank's "northern powerhouse" proposals at Prime Minister's Questions, in the wake of the referendum on Scottish independence and his pledge to devolve more powers to Edinburgh.
"I think Jim O'Neill has done an absolutely first-class job," Mr Cameron said.
"I think there's a real opportunity here... to create a northern powerhouse by looking at how we can use high-speed rail and other infrastructure to link up our great northern cities so that we really have a proper rebalancing of our economy."
The Tories are currently pushing to exclude Scottish MPs from voting in the Commons on English only laws but have no concrete proposals on devolution.
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