Andy Burnham has been urged to drop his pledge to create a No10 North hub after being warned wanting to “play Prime Minister in Manchester” will cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds.
The Makerfield MP, who spent almost a decade out of Westminster as the Mayor of Greater Manchester, confirmed he is planning to send civil servants up the M40 as part of his push to redistribute power across the country.
Downing Street’s Manchester branch is expected to focus on long-term economic strategy, with Mr Burnham hoping to spend one or two days in the office himself.
The proposal mirrors the push to place 1,600 civil servants at the Treasury’s £118million Darlington hub.
However, a former civil servant raised concerns about Mr Burnham’s priorities amid calls for root-and-branch reforms in Whitehall.
Ameer Kotecha, who is now CEO at the Centre for Government Reform, told GB News: “As with everything in the civil service, it’s death by consultation.
Andy Burnham unveiled his No10 North plan on Monday
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“When I was there, every single decision had to go through an equality impact assessment because people objected that it would have a detrimental impact on diversity since there’s less minority staff outside London.
“The rationale for these things is always bizarre, but basically, the point is that the move of the whole civil service base was constantly stymied by the need for this consultation and things like equality impact assessments.
“I worry that if he does revive this whole agenda, it’s going to take up quite a lot of bandwidth.
“It’s not a bad thing in and of itself to get civil service jobs out of London, but it just seems like gesture politics rather than serious politics, because it’s not even close to the top priorities facing the civil service.
“We’ve just seen the Treasury binning numeracy tests because they were harming their outcomes—that’s what he should be fixing, not just doing this sort of headline-grabbing thing of moving to Manchester.”
The former Foreign Office mandarin instead believes Whitehall needs to get tougher on underperformance, crack down on constant job rotation, end working from home and boost productivity through modern technology.
No10 is not the main focus of Ameer Kotecha’s call for reform
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GETTYThe No10 hub in Manchester is also expected to incur additional costs due to the Prime Minister needing enhanced protection and staff receiving travel expenses.
William Yarwood, campaigns director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers should not be forced to fund a duplicate Downing Street, a fresh army of officials and another bureaucratic empire just so Andy Burnham can play Prime Minister in Manchester.
“If he wants to help the North, he should start by reducing the crushing tax burden.”
GB News understands Mr Burnham hopes No10 North will give him economic guidance to stop him clashing with so-called “Treasury orthodoxy”.
Confirming the plan on Monday, Mr Burnham said: “No10 North will be the nerve centre of a rewired Britain.
“It will be the conduit through which we redistribute power and resources across the UK.”
Caroline Simpson, an ally of Mr Burnham who currently serves as Greater Manchester’s chief executive, has been tipped to run the operation.
Andy Burnham is likely to become the next Prime Minister | PA
Officials have been assessing several locations near Manchester’s city centre to establish the base and Whitehall is already planning to open a new campus in Manchester in 2031.
Following his speech, Mr Burnham received a frosty response from Scottish First Minister John Swinney.
Mr Swinney suggested Mr Burnham’s claim that power was too concentrated in Scotland showed a “lack of knowledge”.
However, the ex-Greater Manchester Mayor could call on the backing of ex-Deputy Prime Minister Lord Heseltine.
The Tory grandee, who was the first to call for directly elected mayors in 1991, described the proposal as potentially “very beneficial” to “our entire economy”.
But Lord Hesletine’s Conservative colleagues in the House of Commons warned the proposal is nothing more than an “expensive gimmick”.
Mr Burnham is hoping to move jobs from Whitehall to Manchester
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GETTYShadow Cabinet Office Minister Alex Burghart told GB News: “It’s not serious and the taxpayer will be paying for all the extra security and staff.
“What are the odds that by the end of the year we’ll have a white elephant office in Manchester with a whole load of civil servants working from home?”
Shadow Policy Renewal Minister Neil O’Brien added: “Labour has hammered poorer places with tax rises focused on low-income people and Net Zero madness that is killing industry. No10 North will not offset that.”
The plan to keep Mr Burnham in Manchester two days a week also comes after the two-time Labour leadership loser was accused of “power without accountability” by refusing to take questions from journalists.
The frontrunner to replace Sir Keir Starmer was filmed sneaking out of the People’s History Museum almost immediately after delivering his speech on Monday.
Senior Reform UK figures have now accused Mr Burnham of wanting to use his Manchester base to avoid scrutiny in Westminster.
Andy Burnham is plotting his path to No10 | GETTY
Reform UK Chief Whip Lee Anderson said: “He’s just looking for an excuse to face less scrutiny. Mark my words, he will be hiding in the North as soon as things get tricky.”
Nigel Farage’s local government tsar, Ben Bradley, also told The People’s Channel: “It’s not the first time ministers have tried to pretend that having a northern office is the same as rewiring the whole of the civil service.
“It’s not. It doesn’t achieve anything meaningful. Having the Treasury in Darlington might have created some jobs there – at a cost to taxpayers – but it’s not changed anything tangible.
“It’s not changed how they invest in the North. It’s not changed anything meaningful at all, except adding extra travel cost and bureaucracy.
“It’s a vanity project, and it shows that either he’s happy to try and pull the wool over our eyes or he really doesn’t get the scale of the change that’s needed.”
GB News has approached Mr Burnham for comment.