If English devolution deepens under Burnham the competitive pressures on Wales will increase
Andy Burnham.(Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)
For Wales the prospect of an Andy Burnham premiership should not be viewed through the usual PR-driven prism of Labour politics or Westminster personalities.
The more important question is what his approach to power and economic development would mean for a nation that already has devolved government yet still struggles to turn it into a sustained economic advantage.
Burnham’s political appeal has always rested on something different from the standard Westminster offer. He has consistently spoken the language of place and built a reputation in Greater Manchester around transport, housing, skills, local accountability and a more muscular form of regional leadership.
Whether one agrees with every aspect of his record or not, he has shown that English city regions can become serious political and economic actors in their own right.
That is why Wales should pay close attention because if a Burnham-led UK Government were to accelerate devolution within England, then the implications for Wales could be significant.
Not because such a policy would be anti-Welsh, but because it could create a much more competitive set of English regions, each with stronger leadership, clearer economic priorities and greater freedom to act.
For years, Wales has often compared itself with England as a whole, which is the wrong comparison because the real competition increasingly comes from Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol and Newcastle, each of which is trying to position itself as a destination for investment, talent, innovation and infrastructure.
If those places are given more power over skills, transport, planning, housing, business support and inward investment, they will not wait for Wales to catch up.
That is the challenge, and Wales already has a devolved government, its own economic development responsibilities, its own education system, and its own ability to shape policy in areas that matter directly to business. Yet too often, the machinery of economic development in Wales feels slow and fragmented, with little visible urgency in the basic task of growing the Welsh economy.
If English devolution deepens under Burnham, the competitive pressures on Wales will increase in five areas. The first is inward investment, and a powerful mayoral authority with a clear proposition can go to investors and say, with confidence, what it stands for, which sectors it wants to build, what infrastructure it can offer, and how quickly it can help firms make decisions.
Wales should be able to do the same, but too often our proposition is obscured by institutional complexity and inter-regional competition.
The second is skills, and Burnham has long understood that local economies cannot be transformed if the skills system is disconnected from employers. If English regions gain more influence over training, employment support and technical education, they will be able to align their workforce more closely with growth sectors.
Wales already has many of these levers but having powers and using them well are not the same thing, and our further education colleges and universities need to be part of a much more coherent national mission than they have been for the last 27 years.
The third is infrastructure, and Greater Manchester’s transport agenda has been central to Burnham’s identity as a leader. He understands that buses, trains, housing and employment sites are not separate issues, but shape whether people can access jobs, whether firms can recruit and whether places can grow.
Wales cannot afford to treat infrastructure as a series of disconnected projects. Whilst South East Wales has benefited from public investment, the rest of Wales – especially North Wales – has been left behind.
The fourth is political influence, and whilst a Burnham premiership might be more sympathetic to places outside London, it could also mean that powerful English mayors become even more influential within Whitehall. They will be in the room arguing for funding, freedoms and investment, and Wales cannot assume that its status as a devolved nation automatically gives it priority.
The fifth is enterprise, and this is where the issue becomes most urgent, as Wales lacks enough businesses. Our business density remains below the UK average, and our start-up and scale-up rates are not where they need to be.
A more entrepreneurial England, driven by assertive regional leadership and stronger local economic tools, would place Wales under even greater pressure unless we respond with a serious strategy for business creation and scale-up of our own.
None of this means we should oppose further English devolution as there is no long-term benefit to Wales in an over-centralised neighbour dominated by Whitehall and London. But if English regions are given new powers, the Welsh Government needs to ask itself a harder question, namely what have we done with the powers we already have, and what more can we do?
It is easy to call for more devolution, but harder to show that existing powers are being used with sufficient purpose, especially when Wales desperately needs a sharper economic development model, business-facing economic leadership, and backing for entrepreneurs.
Above all, Wales needs to take competitiveness much more seriously. An Andy Burnham premiership would not necessarily weaken Wales as it could create an opportunity for a new economic settlement across the UK, one in which places outside London finally receive greater power, attention and resources.
But it will weaken Wales if we respond passively, and if English city-regions are given more tools and use them with ambition while those running our nation continue with slow decision-making and institutional caution, the gap will widen.
And that won’t be because England has too much devolution, but because Wales has failed to make the most of its own.
That is the real lesson, and a Burnham premiership may simply expose what has long been true, namely that Wales cannot rely on constitutional status alone.
If increased English devolution forces Wales to become more ambitious, it may prove a useful shock, but if it merely leaves us complaining from the sidelines while the English regions get on with the job, then we will have no one else to blame but ourselves.
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