Burnham to press for deeper English devolution in speech next week
Andy Burnham will use next week’s speech to push for more cash and powers beyond Westminster, after his Makerfield win and Greater Manchester’s £1bn growth fund.
Andy Burnham is set to use a speech next week to press for a deeper English devolution settlement, returning to Westminster with fresh political weight after winning the Makerfield by-election on 19 June 2026. The pitch comes as Greater Manchester tries to turn years of devolved power into a more ambitious claim: that regions with the right institutions should control more of the money and decisions now made in Whitehall.
Greater Manchester's devolution story began with a statutory city-region pilot in 2009 and a devolution agreement with government in 2014, giving the region more control over local transport, planning powers and budgets. Burnham will argue that those powers have helped to build a stronger regional economy, especially after Greater Manchester unveiled a 10-year strategy and a new £1bn Good Growth Fund.
Greater Manchester has been the UK’s fastest-growing city region since 2015, with average annual growth of 3.1%, according to Greater Manchester Combined Authority. The question is which taxes, budgets and policy levers would move from Westminster to English regions, and which places would be able to use them first.
The first beneficiaries would be the areas that already have mayoral and combined-authority structures capable of spending money and delivering projects at scale. Greater Manchester has spent more than a decade building that machinery, which means it is better placed than most English regions to absorb extra control over transport, planning and local investment.
The Met Office issued a Red Extreme Heat Warning for much of southern and central England and Wales. Human-induced climate change has made such events more likely and more intense, according to the Met Office. The UK provisionally reached 37.3C at Santon Downham in Suffolk on 26 June, after earlier provisional June records of 36.1C in Gosport and 36.7C in Merryfield, Somerset, according to the Met Office.
May 2026 was already joint third warmest on record for UK mean temperature, while spring 2026 was the warmest on record for England and the third warmest for the UK, according to the Met Office.
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