Andy Burnham has pledged to open a new Downing Street team in Manchester and deliver the “biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen”, as he set out his vision for government in his first major speech since launching his bid to become prime minister.
The Labour MP, who could take office as early as 20 July if he remains the sole candidate, promised that the so-called ‘No 10 North’ unit would “drive good growth in every postcode” and redistribute power away from Whitehall, which he said had “blocked” progress in Manchester.
“Andy Burnham pledges 'No 10 North' and biggest power rebalancing in first speech since PM bid.”
“It is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down – it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,” Burnham told an audience at the People’s History Museum that included former mayoral colleagues Steve Rotheram, Tracy Brabin and Oliver Coppard.
His speech, unusually, did not include a question-and-answer session. He provided an overview of his direction but no detailed plan. Alongside devolution, he promised the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period, a “complete rethink” of education, and cuts to welfare.
Burnham suggested regions would see “greater public control of essential services” such as water, energy and transport, while London could have more say over education and housing. He also proposed extending devolution deeper into Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. “The people of Dundee and Bangor feel just as distant from Holyrood and the Senedd as they do from Westminster,” he added.
The new No 10 North unit, he said, would support regions in three tasks: reform of essential utilities, reindustrialisation and regeneration – a “circuit-breaker” for Britain.
But the plan has already drawn sharp criticism. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Burnham of backing devolution because he “doesn’t know what to do so he wants to pass the problem to someone else”. Writing in the New Statesman, a commentator dismissed the proposals as a “devolution delusion”, arguing that decentralising power is not a solution to Britain’s problems and noting that great historical projects – from the French Revolution to Bismarck’s unification of Germany – were centralising efforts.
Burnham announced his intention to stand for the Labour leadership last Monday, shortly after being elected MP for Makerfield. He is the only Labour MP to have declared so far. If no other candidate emerges, he will succeed Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister in just three weeks’ time.