Since Andy Burnham left Westminster eight years ago, a return to Parliament was regularly supposed. But he has taken another path called Jo Timan.
It was shortly after Andy Burnham won her second term as mayor of the Grand Manchester in 2021 when Downing Street made the appeal.
In his speech of acceptance, the mayor of work complained of the way he was unfair that a single bus trip to Harpurhey costs three times more than that of the London district of Haringy. His comments were sent to the Prime Minister of the time, Boris Johnson.
Mr. Burnham reacted to reports of “generalized casual” in government on what really means “to level”.
“Here is where I can help you the Prime Minister,” he said, before criticizing the conservative efforts to close the North-South divider.
This week, Burnham revealed that the Prime Minister's team came into contact after the speech – but not in the way he expected.
According to the mayor, 10 Downing Street called Transport for Greater Manchester to wonder if the claim of buses' rates was true.
“It was,” he told the Institute for the Government in a speech this week, “and that revealed how little the center had given little.”
Mr. Burnham was in Westminster on Wednesday April 2 to expose his vision of the most successful decade of the Grand Manchester since the Victorian era – and tell the government what he must do to make this vision a reality before the expenditure exam later this year.
But it was also a field for more power because he called for “a change of big in the architecture and culture of the British state”.
The former deputy of Leigh and twice the leadership of the work which left Westminster in 2017 to become one of the first mayors of metro in the United Kingdom.
Since then, a return to Parliament has been regularly supposed – but he has taken another path in his apparently insatiable quest for being.
Rather than coming back, he tried to move more of Westminster decision and in the hands of local leaders like him.
The role of the mayor – the creation of which former chancellor George Osborne described as his “more proud” realization in politics – was not an idea that everyone in the Grand Manchester was “ Amoure '' with at the beginning, according to Mark Morrin of Thinktank Respublica.
When the reflection group wrote its 2014 influential report nicknamed “Devo Max – Devo Manc”, he made no mention of an elected mayor.
Speaking during an event last month to mark a decade since the first Greater Manchester devolution contract was agreed, Mr. Morrin revealed that the report had been sent to the printers before being withdrawn and that the recommendation to create the role of a mayor was added.
For some local leaders of the Grand Manchester, having a mayor was a compromise that they only accepted in exchange for obtaining power to take buses under public control – a fact that Mr. Burnham regularly remembered by the former chief of the Manchester Council, Sir Richard Leese.
But Mr. Burnham has argued in his opening speech in London this week that, by creating the combined model of authority of the town hall, which is now widespread in all regions through England, the country has “tripped on the change of game that the British state has needed for a long time”.
“It allows a coherent and entirely in place approach,” he said, “and, if used correctly, could provide the roadmap to a more rationalized and financially sustainable state.
“Bringing silos, reaching the points around people and places and, in the process, guaranteeing more value for public money – especially at a time when it is rare.”
The address of the Greater Manchester Mayor at the Institute for the Government came the day after another stage for the devolution in English.
From Tuesday, April 1, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) was more flexibility on how he spends his money.
It occurs two years after the Conservative government has agreed to give Mr. Burnham more financial flexibility within the framework of the “Trailblazer” agreement with a “single regulation” compared to the financing model for Scotland – a moved work promised to see through power.
The renamed “integrated regulation” means that, rather than biding for dozens of closed financing pots, the GMCA will obtain a lump sum of 630 m divided into six “pillars” with total control over the “growth” budget and the flexibility of more than 10% of the five others.
This means that, rather than requiring government approval for certain projects such as the redevelopment of Bury Interchange, GMCA can now use its flexible budget to finance it, including by moving money between punctual capital and daily income pots.
The integrated regulation is only a fraction of the total GMCA budget which is currently at more than 3 billion – some of which are still fenced and cannot be spent for other things – and the flexibility it offers is limited to only 10% for most of the funding.
But it is a big change for the GMCA which, so far, has obtained its funding from around 150 different sources, each with strict conditions attached – and one that Mr. Burnham hopes to signify that public money is spent more effectively with less time devoted to submission for him.
And for the Greater Manchester Mayor, whose powers have increased enormously in the past eight years, this is only the beginning.
In his speech this week, he expressed his proposals to build more affordable housing, put rail services under public control and stimulate opportunities for young people who do not go to university, as well as a “investment pipeline” of 10 years of projects that can go up to 15 billion.
Among them is the planned redevelopment of Old Trafford, including a new stadium of 100,000 places for Manchester United and more than 17,000 new houses around him, which Mr. Burnham did not mention in his opening speech but later described as a criticism of the mission ''.
The mayor also spoke of the construction of new houses on land near stations and promised to set up “at least” five new development companies of the city center in places like Ashton, Bolton and Middleton, citing the success of this model in Stockport.
And he called for “major improvements” to the M60 motorway as part of the development plans of the Atom valley which promises to create more than 20,000 jobs, including in advanced manufacturing, on the M62 corridor between Bury, Rochdale and Oldham.
But he said that more power had to be devolved so that this plan is working properly – and he accused officials of standing on the way.
He underlined this point with the most strength with regard to technical education, arguing that the Grand Manchester should order colleges with the type of BTEC, T levels and learning necessary to create the qualified workforce required in the local economy.
“As a former minister,” he said, “I have great respect for Whitehall and many people working there. That's a lot of things, but I can't do everything because he sometimes tries to do.
“Look at deep inequalities across England. Whitehall is clearly not wired to support the growth of our people and our places.”
“Mayors can really reach the pieces that ministers can never,” he added.
