Prime Minister Burnham Inaugurates ‘No 10 North’ in Manchester to Drive Devolution Agenda

Prime Minister Andy Burnham will spend his first full day in office working from the newly established northern branch of Downing Street in Manchester.

Designated “No 10 North,” the office forms a central pillar of the government’s strategy to redistribute power away from Whitehall and Westminster toward the regions. Senior ministers, including Lucy Powell and Louise Haigh, are slated to operate regularly from the site, which is expected to house up to 300 civil servants by the end of next year.

On Friday, Burnham will chair a meeting of the National Economic Council—a cabinet committee originally launched in 2008 to address UK-wide economic challenges—marking its first session at the new location. Ahead of the meeting, the Prime Minister declared an end to centralized governance.

“For 40 years, power and resources have been sucked into the centre, and too many communities have felt forgotten, without the attention and investment they deserve,” Burnham stated. “The days of Whitehall resisting devolution are over, for good.”

The Manchester hub will assume strategic oversight of devolution and local economic growth, shifting authority from the Treasury—now led by Chancellor John Healey—and Angela Rayner’s Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, though both departments will retain advisory roles. Rayner, whose constituency lies in Greater Manchester, is also expected to work from No 10 North for the first time on Friday.

Burnham’s inaugural schedule includes discussions with business leaders from the Federation of Small Business, the Confederation of British Industry, and the British Chambers of Commerce to formulate strategies for growth and investment. The government aims to synthesize existing devolution frameworks and local growth policies to foster closer collaboration among civil servants, metro mayors, local councils, and the private sector.

The Prime Minister’s opening week has featured a series of cost-of-living interventions, most notably a 20% reduction in business rates for pubs, social clubs, and live music venues taking effect next April.

However, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has dismissed the scale of these ambitions as “too small.” Speaking Thursday, she pressed the Prime Minister to address high energy costs for businesses and a purported gap in defence funding.

“When you are mayor of Manchester, you are handed a big pot of someone else’s money, and you decide where to spend it,” Badenoch remarked. “I’m sure this is great fun. It can make you very popular. But it is not the same as being prime minister.”

She added: “Andy Burnham needs to do better. He is behaving like he’s still the mayor of Manchester. He is now the prime minister of the United Kingdom, he needs to start acting like it.”

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