The Debate: Should Britain set up a No 10 North?
Is Andy Burnham’s vision for a Number 10 North visionary or gimmicky? We hear both sides in this week’s Debate
YES: No 10 North would force Whitehall to embrace devolution
Number 10 North will be a great asset for spreading good growth and raising living standards through devolution.
Whitehall’s instinct is to centralise. Look at how local government is funded: just five per cent of all tax-take in the UK is collected at local level, less than anywhere else in the G7. Councils are overwhelmingly reliant on central government grants to do anything. Despite great strides on English devolution since Burnham became Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017, mayors still have to take the “begging bowl” to Whitehall when they want the funding for big projects. The next Prime Minister should break that instinct.
A big transfer of power from central to local government will face institutional resistance, but it becomes much more likely once civil servants know that being in Whitehall no longer guarantees having the Prime Minister’s ear. Number 10 North would force Whitehall to embrace devolution, rather than do it reluctantly.
If you choose to move significant parts of Number 10 out of London, Manchester is the place for it. The concentration of skilled graduates, research-intensive universities, innovative firms and equity investment gives Manchester the strength and depth required for a big new government base.
No 10 North would be good for London, too. Whitehall’s grip on power is no good for the City. With more devolved power, the Mayor of London will be more empowered to tackle the capital’s economic challenges, from stagnant productivity to the housebuilding crisis.
It’s time to loosen Whitehall’s grip on government, and No 10 North could finally drive the culture change that achieves this.
Anthony Breach is director of policy and research at Centre for Cities
NO: Ambitious civil servants want to live in London
Let’s call the Number 10 North idea what it is – a political gimmick. It appeals to Burnham’s regionally proud base, putting two fingers up at the Southern establishment. The plan for “an extended operation” in Manchester is likely to exacerbate Whitehall’s pathologies rather than remedy them.
A second office doesn’t devolve power. Government would remain centralised – just less coordinated, with control still flowing from a centre now split across 200 miles and a rail line where barely two per cent of the fastest trains ran on time last year.
Germany attempted something similar following reunification, with six out of 14 departments headquartered in Bonn today, the former West German capital. The split with Berlin costs €7.5m and over 20,000 internal flights per year – with the German government’s own report viewing the settlement as “to the detriment of efficiency”.
Moving government offices also creates a human capital problem: ambitious civil servants want to live in London. When the ONS relocated to Newport in 2005, 90 per cent of the London-based staff decided to stay put: the Bean Review found the quality of our national statistics never recovered. Interesting to note Rachel Reeves spent just two days at the Treasury’s flagship Darlington campus last year – power sits where the principal sits.
Burnham’s ambition to bring growth to the whole nation is a good one – but real devolution involves giving regional authorities genuine power to retain tax revenue and lead on planning, the supply side reforms that actually drive growth. Cloning Whitehall in Ancoats will only make Burnham’s job more difficult.
Byron Evans is a research fellow at Policy Exchange
THE VERDICT
The nerve centre for a rewired Britain, the conduit through which power will be distributed – these are the terms in which Andy Burnham pitched his vision for a ‘No 10 North’ last week. The proposal, while not yet completely fleshed out, would consist of some sort of additional government hub in Manchester, from which the PM could potentially govern from two days a week. It’s a bold idea, but is it a good one?
Mr Breach thinks so, arguing it would force Whitehall to embrace devolution, and that Manchester is the natural home for such a hub. The latter may be true, but Mr Evans’ objection is well made: will two centres devolve power, or unhelpfully disperse it?
A ‘centre’, whether that be of a business or a country, is helpful because it’s where power convenes. Splitting that is more likely to dilute, than it is to duplicate, power, with double the opportunity for inefficiency, not to mention that of blaming the other lot. And good luck to any government service that has to rely on Great Britain’s railway services.