Apart from the joyous hyperactivity that comes with suddenly making it to No 10, there are good reasons why Andy Burnham seems to be a prime minister in a hurry. If he decides that his first term is going to run to its maximum length, he has three years, which is a maddening time-frame: too long for him to just tinker here and there, set out his long-term vision and then ask the electorate for permission to do more, but probably too short to start and finish many of his key projects. His chosen solution, it seems, is a mixture of the strategies he would use for each approach, which includes running at some issues at breakneck pace.
So it is with his specialist subject: devolution for England. The huge changes now afoot actually began under Keir Starmer, with the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act passed earlier this year. Areas that previously had two tiers of local government will see them replaced with new unitary councils.
But the most historic move centres on regional mayors – what the government calls “strategic authorities” – and a shift that the Whitehall PR machine is hyping up as a “fundamental rewiring of the way our country works, surrendering power that for too long has been held in Westminster and Whitehall”. In principle, this is unquestionably worth celebrating. But it also gives rise to a whole range of increasingly urgent and awkward questions.
One change became clear earlier this year, and now looks like it will be turbocharged. By April 2027, regional and metro mayors will be able to keep as-yet-unspecified quantities of the business rates generated in their areas, and from the following year onwards, they will retain a share – also yet to be announced, presumably because the Treasury and No 10 North are wrestling with it – of local income taxreceipts. These revenue streams will replace existing Whitehall grants rather than being additional money.
But Burnham’s announcements have, among the more established and confident mayors, triggered visions of even greater liberation from Westminster and Whitehall, and possible command of schools, GP services, childcare and much more. There are also welcome predictions of loans being taken out against mayoral authorities’ projected income to fund long-overdue projects, most promisingly in housing and public transport. England’s 14 regional and metro mayors are right to see a growing opportunity for a civic political renaissance.
Burnham and his people are equally correct in their conviction that improving public services and infrastructure, and firing up growth, demands a leading role for these mayors. But whatever the PM’s insistence that he intends to foster “good growth in every postcode”, the core of the vision is undeniably city-based. As the London School of Economics’ local government expert Tony Travers told me last week: “The whole idea of this version of economic change, which is very embedded, is that the only way to make the economies of city regions work is by letting the central part of the city develop fast, and hope that people will commute in and out to take advantage of it.” And at that point, we should pause for thought.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
