Burnham opens Manchester office for English devolution plan

British Prime Minister Andy Burnham formally opened a new northern office in Manchester on Friday, saying it would support “a different way of running Britain” by shifting more government activity away from London.

Burnham, who replaced Keir Starmer as prime minister on Monday, unveiled No 10 North in the city centre alongside senior officials, including new finance minister John Healey. He said the office was intended to be “the place where Whitehall meets the rest of the country” and argued that more power should flow away from London’s Whitehall governing district to support economic growth.

The former Greater Manchester mayor has presented the city-region as a model for other parts of England, saying it has performed better than the national average in areas including economic growth. He said he aimed to work from No 10 North at least one day a week and rejected criticism that the office was a short-lived gesture. He said the move could help create “a more balanced country”, while acknowledging that power would “always be concentrated” in the capital.

Several devolution experts questioned the scale of the change. Academic and policy adviser Alan Trench said moving central government functions outside London was a form of “de-concentration” and did not by itself amount to a transfer of power. He said it could move public sector jobs and the incomes attached to them, but not necessarily decision-making authority.

The United Kingdom created devolved parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland in the late 1990s, and London later gained a directly elected mayor and assembly. The report said England remains highly centralised despite the creation of some regional mayors and other bodies over the past decade. Trench said no part of England has devolved law-making power.

University of Glasgow professor Nicola McEwen said English devolution had been “very asymmetric” and said London had often treated it as something that happens elsewhere. Burnham’s own powers as Greater Manchester mayor were limited to areas such as transport.

A minister told parliament this week that Burnham had ordered departments, including the finance ministry, to make targeted transfers of strategic functions to No 10 North. The office will sit within a new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, led by civil service head Antonia Romeo, who is based in London.

Burnham will also re-establish the National Economic Council, first created in 2008 during the global financial crisis. He was due to chair its first meeting at No 10 North on Friday with ministers and regional mayors.

McEwen said giving No 10 North a strategic role was positive, but that success would depend on Whitehall’s willingness to cooperate. Trench said a body such as the new Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet was long overdue.

University of Aberdeen politics professor Michael Keating said it was ironic to respond to centralisation by creating a central government department to decide who gets what. He said real devolution would mean central government stepping back, and said previous efforts to create a counterweight to the Treasury had failed.

Burnham’s spokesman acknowledged this week that about 80,000 government staff already work in northwest England. Burnham met the nationalist leaders of Scotland and Wales on Thursday and has ruled out supporting independence referendums. Scotland voted to stay in the UK in 2014, while the Scottish National Party is seeking another vote. Wales has not held such a referendum, but the pro-independence Plaid Cymru party won elections there in May.