Burnham: The North/South divide is closing and there must be no turning back

Having launched a £1bn fund to drive growth across the city region, the Greater Manchester Mayor turned his attention to next week’s budget, outlining his asks and urging the chancellor to do more to support regional growth.

An “Elizabeth Line for the North West”, fiscal devolution, and backing for Greater Manchester’s £10bn regen pipeline from government agencies including Homes England and the National Wealth Fund, all feature on Andy Burnham’s budget wish-list.

“It is time for the country to give full backing our approach and to the higher ambitions we have for our people and places,” he said.

“The North/South divide is finally closing and there must be no turning back.”

Burnham said that the £1bn GM Good Growth Fund – which will back an initial 30 projects in its £400m first wave – will go ahead regardless of what the government says next week, calling it “bigger than the Bee Network” and “the most coherent approach to regional growth this country has ever seen”.

The fund was also billed by the mayor as a cure for the nation’s sluggish growth that should be replicated across the country.

Its impact on Greater Manchester could be significant. Burnham said that if the fund enables the city region to maintain its 3.1% growth rate – which is already above the national average – it could increase the size of the GM economy by more than a third by 2035.

“That’s 36% larger, adding £38bn of GVA to the city region’s “£100bn economy,” he said at a press conference in Stockport yesterday.

Rachel Reeves will deliver a pivotal budget next week. Credit: Simon Walker, HM Treasury, via Flickr

News of the Good Growth Fund was first reported by Place North West a week ago and fleshed out yesterday less than seven days before a pivotal budget for the Labour government, which has thus far failed to make good on its growth promises.

Read more about the projects that will get a share of the first £400m 

When asked whether he had heard from any cabinet members after the announcement of the Good Growth Fund, Burnham said he hadn’t but was buoyed by the fact Tom Riordan, the government’s envoy form northern growth, was in attendance at yesterday’s press conference.

Burnham used the gathering in Stockport as a platform to speak directly to the government to outline his demands.

Budget asks

First up was a call for investment from government agencies including Homes England and the National Wealth Fund to join the Good Growth Fund in a similar capacity to the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, which has pledged an initial £300m.

“We’re confident we can prove this creates a more powerful vehicle for growth and a template which can be taken around the country as other combined authorities move towards integrated settlements,” Burnham said, suggesting the model can be replicated in places like Liverpool and the West Midlands.

He also suggested the impact of the schemes that will benefit from the “pioneering” Good Growth Fund would be blunted if the government did not step up to the plate and deliver improved infrastructure.

Burnham specifically asked for a commitment to a new link between Birmingham and Cheshire after HS2 was scrapped and an “Elizabeth Line for the North West” to be operational by the mid 2040s.

Burnham called on the government to commit to a replacement for HS2 North of the Midlands. Credit: HS2

“We need to spell something out very clearly,” he said. “If the UK decides that the North West of England can have no better than its existing infrastructure…that is an intentional anti-growth policy.”

Fiscal devolution was another ask. Burnham said more control over revenue generation and tax retention – above and beyond “regressive” council tax – would make a big difference and reduce the amount of time he spends “pleading to Whitehall”.

“After a decade of doing more for ourselves than they ever did for us, you would think the system will stop behaving as if it knows best,” he lamented.

He is hopeful Reeves will give regional mayors the greenlight to set up a visitor levy that would charge people staying overnight in cities like Manchester and Liverpool.

“If we can raise more revenue ourselves and have the ability to borrow against it, we can start to go through the gears on the growth journey,” the mayor said.

Burnham also called on GB Energy to work with him through the Good Growth Fund to establish a route towards cheaper bills for consumers and is seeking powers to wrestle assets out of the control of neglectful landlords.

The latter could “turn around towns which have an over concentration of rundown private rents and sector housing stock”, he said.

Looking ahead to May

With local elections across Greater Manchester next May, Burnham ended his speech with a message for voters.

He said that Greater Manchester’s success has come about as a result of “a rare piece of consensus in what have been divided times” and urged the public to use their vote to ensure that continues.

“Greater Manchester’s journey, I believe, is a beacon of progress in what has been a difficult and dark decade for the country,” he said.

“My plea to our residents will be to vote for any candidate who will preserve the Greater Manchester way and not for those who seek to divide and break.”