Burnham opens No 10 North with devolution push

Andy Burnham will begin work at the new No 10 North in Manchester on Friday, chairing a meeting of senior ministers and regional mayors as his government seeks to shift more decision-making power out of Whitehall.

The Manchester operation, based initially at Heron House in the city centre, is intended to become a northern branch of Downing Street and a focal point for devolution and local growth policy. Burnham is expected to work there every week, while ministers Lucy Powell and Louise Haigh will also operate regularly from the site. Up to 300 civil servants are expected to be based there by the end of next year.

The first meeting at the site will bring together the National Economic Council, a cabinet committee first created in 2008 to respond to economic challenges across the UK. Downing Street said the gathering would “put devolution at the centre of the government’s mission to make Britain better”.

“For 40 years, power and resources have been sucked into the centre, and too many communities have felt forgotten, without the attention and investment they deserve,” Burnham said ahead of the meeting. “The days of Whitehall resisting devolution are over, for good.”

Strategic decisions on devolution and local economic growth will move from the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to No 10 North, though both departments will still have input. Al Jazeera reported that the change was confirmed in a July 21 written ministerial statement by Baroness Smith of Basildon, who said the functions would sit within a restructured Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, led by Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo.

Caroline Simpson, the outgoing chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has been named Burnham’s deputy chief of staff and will oversee day-to-day operations, Al Jazeera reported. Downing Street says the arrangement carries no additional cost to taxpayers.

Burnham has described No 10 North as “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain” and told his first Cabinet meeting it was “not a gimmick”. But questions remain over how far the project will change power in practice.

Mirte Boot of the Institute for Public Policy Research North told Al Jazeera that No 10 North “establishes the plumbing, but the water isn’t flowing yet”, saying fiscal devolution would be needed to make the policy meaningful. Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit called Burnham’s devolution agenda “the most ambitious statement … from a senior politician in a generation”, while warning that English councils would need a delivery mechanism. Malcolm Morgan, a transport researcher at the University of Leeds, said genuine devolution requires spending, taxation and regulatory power, adding that “devolution does not create more funding”.

Burnham’s first week in office has included meetings in Glasgow with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and Wales’ First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth, held before King Charles and Queen Camilla opened the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Burnham said growth was needed “in every postcode across the whole of the UK”. A meeting with Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, is planned for a wider UK tour in August, Al Jazeera reported.

Swinney said “rhetoric alone will not cut it” and argued that Scotland had a mandate for self-determination. Burnham did not discuss a second Scottish independence referendum. Ap Iorwerth said he expected “that Number 10 North would not become Whitehall with a different postcode” and pressed for policing and justice powers for Wales, as well as changes to the Barnett Formula.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch criticised Burnham’s early priorities as “too small” and urged him to address high business energy costs and a defence funding gap. “Andy Burnham needs to do better,” she said. “He is behaving like he’s still the mayor of Manchester. He is now the prime minister of the United Kingdom, he needs to start acting like it.”

The Manchester office is in the same building as GCHQ offices, with specialist police already guarding the site. A longer-term base is likely to be at a new government site under construction in Ancoats, due for completion in 2032. The BBC reported that Whitehall officials willing to move to Manchester have been told they will be offered relocation packages.