HOME Secretary Charles Clarke has been urged to leave West Yorkshire Police as a stand-alone force.

The plea came from Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman in a meeting with Mr Clarke and Home Office Minister Hazel Blears.

A report by the Police Inspectorate has called for a shake-up of police across Yorkshire.

One option is to form two forces - one combining West and North Yorkshire and the other merging South Yorkshire and Humber.

Consultations on the proposals are under way - the deadline for comments was yesterday.

Mr Sheerman was among a group of West Yorkshire MPs at the meeting with Mr Clarke.

They told him they were not impressed by the options on offer.

"We demanded that the options should include West Yorkshire remaining as a single police authority.

"Mr Clarke agreed that the option could be ruled in."

Mr Sheerman said: "West Yorkshire is big enough to stand alone - even under the criteria set by the Police Inspectorate.

"I stressed that there are very special demands on the police in West Yorkshire. It is a diverse area. We have big cities like Bradford and Leeds as well as large urban areas like Kirklees.

"Yorkshire is a very big area to police. There are very different policing challenges in South Yorkshire to West Yorkshire."

And he added: "There is certainly an argument that North Yorkshire has more in common with Humberside than it does with West Yorkshire."