Angela Rayner has called for the next prime minister to go further in giving power to communities, backing Andy Burnham’s “vision” for devolution in a speech that implicitly criticised the outgoing Labour government. “It is a time for boldness,” the former deputy prime minister told an event hosted by the New Economics Foundation think tank on Wednesday. Labour, she argued, would not defeat the challenge from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK “with caution” — and “too often left the impression” it was “defending the status quo rather than challenging it”.
Her remarks come as Burnham is widely expected to become prime minister later this month after Sir Keir Starmer’s resignation, having promised the biggest “rebalancing of power our country has ever seen”. The Greater Manchester mayor has already floated a “No 10 North” team based in Manchester, an idea backed by senior minister Darren Jones. Jones also urged Starmer’s successor to “strengthen the centre” by creating a department for the prime minister in London.
“Rayner backs Burnham's devolution vision, warns Labour must be bold, as criticisms mount over plans for super-mayors covering Norfolk-Suffolk and Hampshire-Isle of Wight.”
But the kind of devolution Burnham inherits from Starmer has already produced proposals that critics say border on the absurd. From 2028, the largest city-region in Europe will be a combined “metro area” of Norfolk and Suffolk, a single mayoral authority covering 9,200 square kilometres — six times larger than Greater London. The idea of Norwich being the administrative capital of a city-state eclipsing Madrid or Paris in scope has been likened to an Alan Partridge fever dream.
Almost as contentious is the plan for a single mayor to govern the whole of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. The two areas have little history of collaboration: residents of Portsmouth and Southampton, just 17 miles apart, call each other “skates” and “scum” respectively. When Emirates sponsored Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower and planned to paint it in Southampton FC’s colours, the uproar was immediate.
Rayner acknowledged the difficulties, saying she experienced “institutional resistance to fiscal devolution throughout” her time in office but insisted it could be “overcome”. She cited moves to give English regional mayors the power to charge tourists an overnight tax, and said “Whitehall empires hoard their own power”. She argued the “devolution revolution” will only “reach its full potential if central government changes too, with No 10 driving it as a core mission”. Transport, children’s social care and derelict buildings were among the areas she said mayors should be backed to deliver. “We must rewire England by devolving power and money to the country as a whole,” she concluded, outlining her hopes for a “fairer future”.