Labour MP promises 10-year mission to raise living standards and reindustrialise Britain
London: Labor MP Andy Burnham has promised a “10-year mandate” to raise living standards if he becomes Britain’s prime minister in a few weeks, and has said he wants to rebuild industry and revitalize areas by giving mayors across the country more power.
Burnham declared that the political system was “broken” after years of household wealth and political turmoil, and promised there would be a “circuit breaker” that could turn the country around.
But his remarks, made in a landmark speech a week after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he would resign, drew swift criticism for a lack of detail on how they would work and boost economic growth.
Burnham, who has spent the last nine years as mayor of Greater Manchester, laid out broad themes in his speech but said specific decisions and the appointment of cabinet ministers would wait until the leadership was resolved.
“We will create a more orderly state with a clearer purpose to deliver energy to every part of the country and to have a laser-like focus on growth and renewal – good growth,” he said.
He said this would mean reforming essential services to restore public ownership, as well as government measures to “re-industrialise” the economy after years of losing manufacturing jobs.
“We need to maintain sovereign production and production capability across the country in critical sectors such as steel, defence, energy, food and agriculture,” he said.
“Instead of being ready to go with the flow, as we have unfortunately done in the past.”
Burnham warned that the number of apprentices needed to be increased and said the education system needed to be overhauled to make trades as valuable as a university degree.
In an important recognition of the policy challenge of moving young people off welfare and into work, he pointed out that social security payments could be reformed without any firm commitments.
“People have argued for many years for an education system based on parity between academic and technical, and that is what we will build by giving every young person growing up here a clear path to a re-industrialized Britain,” he said.
“Where young people need mental health support, this should be provided as part of in-work support.”
The idea of giving more powers to local governments is not new, given similar language in then-prime minister Boris Johnson’s 2021 plan, known as “equalisation”, in which he said local authorities would have more leeway to make decisions.
But Burnham attracted attention by pledging to change some of the powers of the prime minister’s office, which is based at Number 10 Downing Street in London – near major civil service departments around Whitehall; thus a new government body would be responsible for northern England and other areas outside the capital.
“We will deliver the biggest rebalancing of powers, our country has seen that it is time for Whitehall to accept that growth cannot be ordered from the top down,” he said.
“Instead, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up. The power to make a real difference comes from having the power at the ground level.”
Burnham called his proposed new office “Number 10 in the North”, a phrase that dominated media coverage of his speech, but he did not provide any details about how it would work.
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David Crowe is the European correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect with: X or email.
