Andy Burnham Names Caroline Simpson Deputy Chief Of Staff For No 10 North Devolution

Andy Burnham has asked the chief executive of the Greater Manchester combined authority to be his deputy chief of staff, leading the new No 10 North if he becomes prime minister in three weeks’ time.

Caroline Simpson, who worked closely with Burnham when he was mayor, will be based in Manchester to oversee the devolution of power and resources across the UK that he promised would transform the country.

Al Jazeera

In a speech in Manchester on Monday, Burnham confirmed he would set up No 10 North as the “nerve centre of a rewired Britain,” arguing that the Westminster system was “broken” and needed a radical devolution of power to transform the country.

The new office would have three “clear tasks” for devolution: to increase public ownership of essential utilities such as water, energy and housing; re-industrialise swathes of the country; and regenerate towns, prioritising places that had been left behind.

Burnham has already appointed James Purnell, his former colleague from the Tony Blair era, as his chief of staff as he begins to finalise his team for government.

Burnham, speaking in Manchester as Labour’s likely next PM, promised a “10-year mission” to raise living standards if he becomes Britain’s prime minister within weeks, declaring he wants to rebuild industry and revive the regions by giving more power to mayors across the country.

He said the political system was “broken” after years of falling household wealth and political turmoil, and vowed to be a “circuit-breaker” who could turn the country around.

BBC

In his Manchester speech, Burnham said “Growth cannot be ordered from the top down. Indeed, it can only be nurtured from the bottom up,” and he described No 10 North as the tool to make “power flow” across the country.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch mocked Burnham for taking too long to set out detailed policies when she said Burnham’s “big idea is to shuffle power between politicians,” adding “Not fix the welfare system.”

The BBC reported that Burnham promised the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period, a “complete rethink” of education and cuts to welfare, while also saying he did not provide a detailed plan and did not take questions at the end.

The Institute for Government said moving part of No.10 to Manchester could give the operation the space it needs to deliver on Burnham’s priorities, but only if the next prime minister is clear what No.10 North is for.

It described No.10 as the “immediate policy, communications, and political support machine around the prime minister,” and warned that No.10 too often neglects these core responsibilities while daily crisis management and communications work overwhelm the centre.

The Institute said Burnham’s vision of a No.10 North will only succeed if he knows—and spells out in public—what a split operation is for, and it argued that “some of the No.10 operation has to stay in London.”

The BBC said Burnham promised No 10 North would oversee “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has ever seen,” with a tool to achieve three tasks including reform of essential utilities, reindustrialisation and regeneration.

In the same BBC account, Burnham said there would be “new opportunities to extend devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power deeper down,” and he added that distributing power across the country would “give Britain the circuit-breaker it needs.”