Andy Burnham vows to set up No 10 North as ‘nerve centre of rewired Britain’

Andy Burnham will set up No 10 North as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain” to oversee a devolution of power and resources across the UK that he said would deliver the change the country desperately needed. The prime minister-in-waiting said the Westminster system was “broken” and that a “more of the same” approach would neither improve living standards or restore people’s faith in how politics worked for them. In his first speech since Keir Starmer announced he was standing down , Burnham repeatedly returned to the theme of a decade of “change” but also set out concrete policies to transform how the country works, beginning with overcoming Whitehall’s resistance to change. No 10 North would have three “clear tasks” for devolution: to increase public ownership of essential utilities such as water, energy and housing; reindustrialise swathes of the country; and regenerate towns, prioritising places that had been left behind. This would include overseeing the biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period, he said, as well as ordering Whitehall to back British firms bidding for public contracts – even if this cost taxpayers more. However, Burnham acknowledged that “people can’t wait for ever for change”, as he hinted at an early cost of living support package once he made it to Downing Street. “I heard on doorsteps in Makerfield how people need a bit extra now to help with rising costs,” he said. …