In this personal reflection for the Manchester Evening News, Sir Richard Leese looks back on nearly two decades of working with Andy Burnham.

(Image: Joel Goodman)

Sir Richard Leese led Manchester City Council for 25 years and was one of the principal architects of Greater Manchester’s devolution settlement, working alongside governments of different political colours to reshape how the city-region is governed. As deputy mayor of Greater Manchester between 2017 and 2021, he worked closely with Andy Burnham during some of the most significant moments of his mayoralty, from transport reform and homelessness initiatives to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this personal reflection for the Manchester Evening News, Sir Richard looks back on nearly two decades of working with Burnham in a variety of roles – as a government minister, shadow cabinet member, mayor and health leader. Drawing on first-hand experience, he offers his perspective on Burnham’s strengths, evolution as a politician and the impact he has had on Greater Manchester.

I’m guessing most people in Greater Manchester will have their own idea of who Andy Burnham is, but this is my personal perspective, having worked with him in four different scenarios over almost two decades.

My first serious interactions with Andy were when he was a Minister, both at DCMS where he was very supportive of the Royal Opera House of the North, an idea that eventually emerged as the Factory, and at Health, where he was instrumental in helping bring the Bio-Medical Research Centre to Manchester.

A few years later, as Shadow Secretary of State for Health, he was less than enamoured about the health devolution deal between the ten Greater Manchester councils and the NHS. However, this was the start of a journey into the world of devolution, a recognition that a Combined Authority (CA) with devolved powers could do things that the Central Government couldn’t, and that this was an area in which politicians could make a real difference to people’s lives. It helped that health devolution began to work, and it wasn’t surprising that Andy began to see a future for himself outside of the Westminster bubble.

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The most intense period of working with Andy was from his first election as GM mayor in 2017 to when I stepped down from Manchester City Council in December 2021.

The Combined Authority’s constitution required the Mayor to appoint one of the ten council leaders as Deputy Mayor, and I agreed to take on that role alongside the Economy portfolio I already held, and so started a routine of weekly meetings to discuss the big issues of the day.

From the beginning he was clear that he was elected with a manifesto and that is what he would deliver. Some of this was straightforward, but not all. The commitment to “eradicate homelessness” though laudable, was undeliverable. Even so, if he couldn’t eradicate homelessness, he was determined to do something about it, and “A Bed Every Night” is a concrete example of him doing just that.

He has Manchester’s can-do attitude.

Inevitably he brought some Westminster ways with him, not least the habit of Government Ministers to announce policy first and think about the details and delivery afterwards. This nearly happened with the Good Employment Charter, but I put the case to Andy that if he wanted this to work, employers and employees needed to be part of designing it. That’s what happened and the Charter, much imitated elsewhere, was the better for it. Importantly, Andy learnt from this, about the importance of co-design and co-production, and this became a standard part of his repertoire.

He also bought-in heavily to partnership working across the public, private and voluntary sector with a shared vision and strategy based on evidence. This is evidenced in the Independent Prosperity Review and the subsequent GM Industrial Strategy, and understanding that sometimes taking a little more time brings better results in the long-term. Sticking with growth, he found that the CA had a number of financial instruments, not just the Housing Investment Fund, that allowed it to be an active player in the economy, part of what is currently described as Manchesterism.

I must mention bus re-regulation if only because I used to regularly tell Andy it was the only reason he was there. Delivering bus re-regulation was not easy with hostile bus companies scrutinising every step, looking for ways to take legal action. Bus re-regulation, like many other things, was something he inherited, but he had to see it through in immense detail over many years – and he did.

Elsewhere, I have described Andy as a people-person, with a natural empathy for people’s needs and aspirations. With the onset of Covid, I switched to the health portfolio, and weekly meetings became more like daily. The fights with the government were driven entirely by an understanding that remote, and often irrational, centralised decision making was making life even more difficult for GM residents. The Makerfield test will be real. How will a particular policy make the lives of people in the many different communities of Makerfield better, and consequently better in all the “Makerfields” all over the country.

Andy Burnham and Richard Leese in 2018.

Working with Andy continued when I took on a GM NHS role, especially when he took on the GM health portfolio and became, with me, Co-Chair of the Integrated Care Partnership Board. It says a lot about Andy that he made sure I was comfortable with that before doing it and that he has been very active in the role.

To end, a bit of myth busting. Andy is often credited for what others have done, but he doesn’t claim credit for what others have done. For example, when talking about economic growth in Manchester, Andy has always credited Howard Bernstein and myself. I’ve seen him very regularly publicly praise others for their contribution.

And why is changing your mind described as flip-flopping? I’ve often argued with Andy, not always successfully, for him to change his mind, and for an intelligent, learning politician, as understanding and circumstances change, so should their mind.

I’m not going to pretend that Andy is perfect, or that working with him was always easy, but then nor should it have been. However, Andy came into local government as Mayor and has learnt a whole new way of working including being collaborative, working as a team, consensual, strengths based, doing what you say you’re going to do, and perhaps most importantly that devolution works. Westminster would be a whole lot better if it worked in this way.