I spend my life travelling around the UK; taking power away from Westminster is not straightforward.
Andy Burnham’s story about Britain – about what has gone wrong and what needs to change – is a compelling narrative which posits the idea that more devolution, more power moved away from London and towards the regions, will lead to better economic and social outcomes for the country and people who live in it.
It will start with No 10 North based in Manchester, but he promises to extend far beyond, north to Aberdeen and south towards Port Talbot.
I was in Aberdeen last week, speaking to local people as they grapple with the decline of their biggest industry: oil and gas. Closer to Norway than it is to London, Scotland’s third largest city, with a population of around 230,000, feels as far removed from Westminster as it’s possible to be. But it doesn’t feel particularly close to Manchester either.
Can transferring more political and economic power here help?
“Hold on,” you might be thinking as you read this. “Wait a minute! Don’t we already have devolved government and power in Britain?” It’s a reasonable question to ask. In the late 1990s, Tony Blair’s New Labour government began the process of moving power away from Westminster. In 1999 the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood was established and, in Wales, the National Assembly or Senedd was born. Northern Ireland, of course, got devolved government as part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
There are now 14 combined authority mayors across England, all with power over huge regional budgets, direct control over transport, skills and adult education, economic development and (some) housebuilding. The devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have even greater powers such as the ability to set taxes and pass new legislation on anything from education to healthcare.
And yet, Britain is still struggling. Economic growth is sluggish, overall deprivation has risen, youth unemployment is up, and former industrial towns, including in Scotland and Wales, are suffering. I’ve heard from locals in Corby and Middlesbrough that poverty is up and opportunities are becoming scarcer, but I’ve also seen that this is happening in Port Talbot, parts of Swansea and Cornwall which, so far, have not been mentioned by the likely next Labour prime minister.
After nearly 20 years, Blair-era devolution in the nations has, according to economists, not led to significant economic growth in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Indeed, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) suggests that their economic productivity (GDP) has remained broadly similar relative to the UK’s average as it was in the late 90s. So why does Burnham think more devolution is the answer?
Now, in fairness, since the late 90s Britain’s economy has been hammered. Firstly, by the 2008 global financial crisis, then by Brexit and, more recently, inflation sparked by a pandemic and two major wars. So, it’s not entirely fair to call devolution a failure.
Indeed, those who work with Burnham would argue that the problem is that Britain’s doesn’t have radical enough devolution. Our “light” version means delegating some power, responsibility and budget while ultimately retaining ultimate sovereignty for central government. In France, Germany and the Netherlands, however, there is full-fat federalism which involves properly transferring power and, crucially, cash.
Consider the fact that combined mayoral authorities in England rely on grants from central government to the tune of a few billion here and there while subnational governments in Germany and France command hundreds of billions of euros, have constitutionally protected tax revenues, and control an overwhelming share of their respective countries’ public infrastructure spending.
When it comes to Britain’s finances, this country has become increasingly centralised since 1980 even though, on paper, power has been devolved. Meanwhile, local authorities have struggled and strained under the weight of their responsibilities to house people in expensive temporary accommodation, deliver SEND services or adult social care.
At the same time, central government has not meaningfully expanded local authorities’ powers to deal with these issues: to build new homes or fund locally run care services. As a Labour and Co-operative Party MP, Burnham will probably be familiar with a new Co-op report which looks at how private equity-backed care firms have cost local councils dearly. Similarly, as he told me in Manchester, temporary accommodation risks bankrupting councils.
Burnham knows full well that Birmingham and Manchester are not equal in power to Marseille, Lyon, Hamburg or Frankfurt. Indeed, some, including London Mayor Sadiq Khan, argue that London has less power over what happens in Britain’s capital than Berlin or Paris.
The devolution 2.0 that Burnham has talked up seems less about adding to local government’s burden with more education or healthcare responsibilities and more about shoring up the powers it already has in theory with the financial and political power to flex them. As Burnham himself put it to me in 2024, how could it be that he wasn’t even in the room for conversations about cancelling HS2?
Manchester’s above-average rate of economic growth, achieved by marshalling public and private finance side by side to deliver regeneration, infrastructure and new housing and by an overhaul of transport, as well as locally targeted education schemes, is now regarded as a blueprint for what is possible under the right conditions: “Manchesterism”.
Burnham’s Manchester story is undeniably inspiring but, also, curiously similar to that of the Scottish National Party (SNP), whose leader, Nicola Sturgeon, regularly argued that more independence for Scotland was required if the country was truly to fly. Similarly, Plaid Cymru in Wales are calling for more power – including over police and justice.
Could more devolution create a new future for Aberdeen, reindustrialising it to become the centre of renewable energy as it once was of oil? Can it bring green steel to Port Talbot? And what about Cornwall, which currently has no devolved government nor a combined authority mayor, where hospital workers and teachers can no longer afford to live while second homeowners flood pubs and restaurants during the summer months?
If the riposte to critics who argue that we already have devolution is that it is not proper devolution, then granting regions and nations the power they crave once and for all is the only way to find out. All signs from Burnham’s camp suggest that is now the plan.
For it to work, it will need to be about suburbs and rural areas as well as cities. It will need to carefully balance the might of central government with the agility of local mayors. And, above all, because Britain’s finances are on a knife-edge, not a single penny can be misspent.
Nonetheless, to get to the end of Burnham’s story and find out whether he really can fix Britain’s “broken” systems, as he puts it, by moving political and financial power around and bringing with it economic growth will take time. More time, most likely, than is left in this Parliament.