On Monday, while the cameras were fixed on that famous black door in Downing Street, something important was happening 165 miles away. A small team of officials and advisers walked into an office building in Manchester to set about the remaking of the British state. This was the beginning of No 10 North: the first major act of this government and what Andy Burnham, the prime minister, hopes will be seen as its most defining.
Over the past 40 years, Burnham argued, Britain has taken a series of wrong turns. In the 1980s, political power was centralised, economic power was privatised and communities were deindustrialised. Many of the places most affected have not recovered since and are still in decline. They have been unable to turn things around because they simply do not have the necessary power to do so. This feeling of neglect, he wrote in an article for the Guardian, has lain underneath the increasingly fractious politics that has bedevilled Britain in recent times.
“Andy Burnham launches No 10 North in Manchester, vowing to end decades of centralised power and drive growth across UK.”
Solving this problem is crucial for the cohesion of the country, Burnham said. Previous attempts – such as levelling up and the shifting of bits of the British state around the map – have been gimmicks that did not work. Decision-making power remained in London, and in the very centre of government itself, Nos 10 and 11 have not been sufficiently aligned, particularly on growth.
No 10 North is seeking to correct that. Burnham described it as a potential “sea change” in the way Britain is run. It is about driving growth from the most powerful office in the land and doing so in close alignment with the Treasury. It is about taking power down and placing it in the hands of people who can use it best.
The new Manchester office will be responsible for accelerating devolution, driving reindustrialisation and growth across every postcode of the UK, and removing barriers to regeneration – from council housebuilding to public transport infrastructure. Crucially, Burnham said, No 10 North will bring the whole of Whitehall together behind places rather than standing in their way. The long-term ambition is clear: to achieve equivalent living standards across all the regions and nations of the UK.
Whether the initiative will prove more durable than past attempts at decentralisation remains to be seen. But Burnham is insistent: No 10 North is no gimmick – it is, he said, the remaking of the state.