Last week, Andy Burnham gave a speech at the People’s History Museum in Manchester before travelling to London to take his seat as the newest Member of the House of Commons.
The museum, which bills itself as the “national museum of democracy,” was no accidental choice of venue for Burnham’s big policy announcement on devolution.
“Westminster,” he told his audience, “hadn’t been working for people and it hasn’t been working for a very long time. In fact, it is broken. And, as a result, the country isn’t where it should be. It is stuck in a rut.”
His proposed solution is to devolve power from Whitehall and Westminster to lower levels of governance, which he argues will be more collaborative and more in tune with ordinary voters.
The centrepiece of this devolution agenda is what Burnham calls “No 10 North,” described as the Prime Minister’s office “in extended operation based here in Manchester.”
Burnham has been emphatic about the unit’s ambition, stating: “No 10 North will be the nerve centre for a rewired Britain. It will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK.”
Caroline Simpson, Burnham’s deputy chief of staff responsible for devolution, is expected to play a central role in the new unit, having served as chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority since 2024.
Rumours suggest the Prime Minister could spend as many as two days a week in the North, though the precise location and staffing levels of No 10 North remain entirely unspecified.
The Prime Minister’s Office employs only around 250 people in total, some of whom are engaged simply in maintaining the building itself, raising serious practical questions about how the northern operation would be staffed.
It is unclear how No 10 North would “coordinate all parts of government to agree a long-term economic strategy,” a function that has traditionally belonged to Cabinet and its system of committees.
Many government departments already maintain campuses outside London, most notably the Darlington Economic Campus, which serves as a second base for HM Treasury and houses officials from six other departments.
Critics argue, however, that No 10 North differs fundamentally from those arrangements, as it would require the physical presence of the Prime Minister and potentially his most senior advisers, including the national security adviser and the cabinet secretary.
Some ambitious civil servants may also be reluctant to relocate to Manchester, particularly given that Burnham’s tenure beyond the next general election remains far from guaranteed.
There is also a logical tension at the heart of the proposal: if the goal is economic rebalancing across the entire country, it is difficult to explain why a unit based in Manchester would be better placed to assist development in Dorset, East Anglia, or Lincolnshire.
As writer and historian Eliot Wilson observes, this feels like “an idea sketched out to attract headlines without having been put under any real scrutiny,” generating considerable noise while leaving the hard administrative questions conspicuously unanswered.