The story of Dick Whittington is a story plenty of families will enjoy on the stage this Christmas.

The real Dick Whittington was the first famous lord mayor of London – and the changes he made back in the 1270s can still be traced in London today. The real moral of the story? The right mayors with the right powers can make a real difference. That’s the urgent debate our city needs now. In May, we get the chance to decide whether we want an elected mayor or not – but right now, in a consultation launched a few weeks ago, the government is asking, what power should a mayor actually have?

I say our city needs to be ambitious. We should ask for the most powerful mayor in Britain.

What does that mean in practice?

First thing’s first. If we’ve learned one thing in Hodge Hill, winning over £167 million in new investment over the last six years, it is that peaceful streets come first. Places wracked by crime don’t prosper – and that’s why the new Mayor of Birmingham needs real influence on policing.

So with the advent of elected Police Commissioners, why shouldn’t the mayor be allowed to appoint a (politically neutral) Deputy Commissioner, or at least chair the new Police and Crime Panel? That could help the mayor do a much better job of connecting together city policing with services like NHS drug treatment, employment and restorative justice techniques that are proven to cut re-offending – and youth services which help stop that offending in the first place.

What else?

In the global economy, our new competitors aren’t just other parts of Britain – its cities like Shanghai and Seoul and Singapore. Guess what? Their education scores are massively ahead of ours.

When I was a regional minister, I put together the region’s first skills strategy; we need the same approach for our city today – with an elected mayor holding a dual-key over funding decisions for colleges and trainers and a strong say in DWP’s local Work Programme. That would give a mayor real influence in equipping our city to win work.

But why not go further? Why don’t we give the mayor the power to appoint a powerful Deputy Mayor as Education Commissioner to raise school standards and finesse our schools’ curriculum so it’s a better fit with the industries we think we’re good at?

Next on my list is science, innovation and enterprise. We’ve got amazing strengths in the city – but we dare not risk falling behind. Why shouldn’t the mayor hold powers to raise money on the bond market or through Tax Increment Financing to help underpin a regional bank for innovative SMEs – like the new Essex Bank – or key research and development projects in our great universities, hospitals or industry workshops?

Third,is transport and trade. Transport is so key that the mayor needs coordinating powers – a Mayor’s Transport Commission could coordinate transport across the sub-region, hold regional transport funds – and crucially bring Network Rail, rail franchising decisions and the Highways Agency to the city’s table.