Andy Burnham used a speech today to make a gaffe-free offer to the First Minister: work with him on pushing more power out of Westminster and Holyrood to Scotland’s regions. He said the aim is to spread opportunities across communities in Scotland’s cities and regions after speaking with young people in Lanarkshire.
Burnham tied that pitch to a wider argument about how Scotland is run. He said the Scottish Government is one of the most centralised devolved administrations in Europe and that Holyrood does not give people who know their areas best enough say. His answer is a further shift of decision-making away from the centre and toward local places that want to drive reindustrialisation.
Andy Burnham and No10 North
He set out the offer in direct terms: a separate gaffe example is not part of this story, while Burnham’s own words were about Scotland’s place in the UK Government’s rewiring of the state. He said regions in Scotland are fully part of that process through No10 North and the Scotland Office, and that he wants the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government on a new model of regional empowerment.
That means the proposal is not just a general plea for more local influence. It points to a structure in which Westminster and Holyrood would keep pushing authority downward, but with Scotland’s regions and cities getting a larger role in decisions that shape their own priorities. Burnham also said he wanted to work with the First Minister to spread opportunities to communities across Scotland’s regions and cities.
27 years of devolution
The speech lands against 27 years of devolution already built from Westminster, which is why Burnham framed the next stage as more than a symbolic gesture. He said: “Devolution has done a great deal, but power was never supposed to stop at the doors of the Scottish Parliament.”
He was even more explicit about the people he says should carry more weight in that system: “People in North Lanarkshire, in Fife or in the Highlands know what their communities need better than any minister, whether they sit in London or Edinburgh.” Burnham said there is no limit to what can be achieved for the Scottish people if the two governments work together.
Scottish regions and cities
The practical issue now is simple: the offer is to build a new model, but the speech does not set out which powers would move first. What it does establish is the direction of travel — toward Scotland’s regions and cities, with the Scottish Government, the UK Government, No10 North and the Scotland Office all pulled into the same conversation about where authority should sit.
“This is me making an offer to the Scottish Government. With us working together, there is no limit to what we can achieve for the Scottish people,” Burnham said. The next answer readers will want is which responsibilities leave Holyrood and which stay there, because that is where the shape of the new model will be decided.
