Angela Rayner has said the next prime minister must go further in giving power to communities, backing Andy Burnham's vision for devolution, as she argued the Labour government under Sir Keir Starmer has 'too often left the impression' it was 'defending the status quo rather than challenging it'.
Speaking at an event for the New Economics Foundation think tank on Wednesday, the former deputy prime minister said it was a 'time for boldness' as Labour would not defeat the challenge from Nigel Farage's Reform UK 'with caution'. Her remarks came after senior minister Darren Jones said he liked the idea of 'No 10 North' – a new Downing Street team based in Manchester – put forward by Burnham, who is the favourite to replace Sir Keir as prime minister later this month.
“Angela Rayner said the next PM must go further on devolution, backing Andy Burnham's vision to redistribute power.”
Burnham, launching his Labour leadership bid on Monday, pledged to devolve power to local communities away from senior civil servants in Whitehall, which he said had 'blocked' progress in Greater Manchester where he had been mayor. '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 said.
Rayner highlighted her efforts in government to further devolve power to regions in England, but said there needs to be 'much deeper cultural changes' in central government, adding that 'Whitehall empires hoard their own power' and 'we must rewire England by devolving power and money to the country as a whole'. She experienced 'institutional resistance to fiscal devolution throughout' her time in office, she said, citing moves to give English regional mayors the power to charge tourists a tax for staying overnight in their areas.
Yet the UnHerd columnist argued that Burnham's promised 'rebalancing of power' risks repeating the failures of the Starmer regime. Keir Starmer's own 2023 pledge to transform 'take back control' from a slogan into a solution through devolution foundered, the piece noted, pointing to the 'ever more farcical incompetence' of Starmer's local government reorganisation. From 2028, the largest city-region in Europe will be the combined 'metro area' of Norfolk and Suffolk – some 9,200 square kilometres, six times larger than Greater London. A single mayor will also cover the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, despite no history of collaboration between cities like Portsmouth and Southampton whose mutual nicknames are 'scum' and 'skates'.
Rayner argued the 'devolution revolution' will only 'reach its full potential if central government changes too, with No 10 driving it as a core mission'. She outlined hopes for achieving a 'fairer future', saying the work has started.