Bring Back The Minister For London, Labour MPs In Capital Urge Burnham
6 min read
Labour MPs in the capital have called on incoming prime minister Andy Burnham to restore the role of minister for London.
Florence Eshalomi, who was a London Assembly Member before entering the House of Commons, said doing so would help London "work with all the regions to support economic growth".
Burnham will officially replace Keir Starmer in Downing Street next week after a large majority of Labour MPs nominated the former Greater Manchester mayor to take over. Starmer will answer his final PMQs today (Wednesday) before a formal handover on Monday.
Burnham, who will be the UK's seventh prime minister in a decade, has pledged to accelerate the devolution of power away from Westminster and Whitehall, "putting it in the hands of the people and places who can use it best, and in so doing creating a new sense of agency, possibility and hope flowing around the country".
Central to his "Manchesterism" agenda is expanding the Downing Street operation and locating part of it in Manchester. 'No 10 in the North' will be the "nerve centre of a rewired Britain", Burnham, who was elected the MP for Makerfield last month, has said.
The Parliamentary Labour Party broadly supports Burnham's mission to shift power away from London as it seeks to combat the electoral threats posed by Reform UK and the Greens.
However, there is unease among some Labour MPs that the heavy focus on Manchester risks overlooking other parts of the country facing serious economic and social challenges.
At the same time, Labour MPs in the capital have urged the incoming PM to ensure that a greater focus on the city where he served as mayor does not come at the expense of London and the South East. As well as being crucial to the national economy, the capital has poverty of its own that should not be ignored, they argue.
As part of that push, two Labour MPs in London have told PoliticsHome that Burnham should appoint a minister for London when he assembles his first cabinet.
The role was last held by former Conservative MP Greg Hands in 2024, with Starmer deciding not to carry it forward when he entered power two years ago. The role is traditionally used when the London mayor is of a different political party to the party in government. The former is currently Labour's Sadiq Khan.
Margaret Mullane, Labour MP for Dagenham and Rainham, said: "London often gets overlooked as it's the economic hub of the country. But in seats like Dagenham and Rainham there are high levels of deprivation, and there are many other areas in the capital like it.
"When we had a shadow London minister, there was a central voice in Parliament speaking for areas like mine. Bringing this position back can only be a benefit."
Eshalomi, the Labour MP for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green, added: "Andy is committed to ensuring that London and the rest of the country successfully support the challenge of the new government.
"This will work if we revitalise the important role of the minister for London to work with all the regions to support economic growth."
Hands, previously a Tory MP in London, was positive about the idea of bringing back the position, arguing that it can "help the communication" between the London mayor and the PM. However, he added: "It would have to be done in a way that Sadiq Khan and the PM thought was helpful; if either are opposed, then they will just ignore that role."
TheCityUK, which represents the financial services sector, said the incoming Labour government's wider devolution agenda must include "a lens" focused "on powering up London's economic strength and reflecting its role in nationwide growth".
"As the hub for the UK's world-class international financial centre, London plays a central role in creating jobs, investment and tax revenue. It also connects businesses, talent and capital with regional and national hubs across the UK," said CEO Miles Celic OBE.
Burnham described London as "the world's greatest capital city" in a speech late last month.
Labour MP Florence Eshalomi has urged Burnham to revive the minister for London role (Alamy)
On Monday night, a week before becoming prime minister, Burnham met virtually with Labour MPs to take questions about his plans for power.
According to those present, he sought to reassure Labour backbenchers that his devolution agenda would focus on all parts of the country and hinted at creating a minister for coastal communities.
The Labour Rural Research Group has this week published a report arguing that rural communities have an important role in delivering economic growth, and cautioned Burnham against urban bias in his devolution plans.
Labour MP for Rushcliffe and vice-chair of the group, James Naish, said: "Rural communities shouldn’t be seen as peripheral to national renewal; rather, they are places where growth can be generated, productivity unlocked and national priorities delivered.
"The next phase of Labour in government should, therefore, recognise rural economies not simply as areas requiring support, but as strategic assets capable of driving growth."
Perran Moon, the Labour MP for the coastal seat of Camborne and Redruth in Cornwall, has issued one of the strongest public warnings to the incoming Burnham administration about the risk of overlooking parts of the country like his.
“We’re at a really delicate moment," he told PoliticsHome.
"Either we can reignite the north-south debate, or we can have a more sophisticated, nuanced approach to the challenges faced in inner cities vs suburban vs rural vs remote coastal communities."
He continued: "There are significant challenges and opportunities in each, but they are different. They require separate approaches and in some cases, separate devolution arrangements.
"The concern has to be that the incoming administration has not quite got its collective head around the fact that Labour isn’t an exclusively urban party anymore. In fact, Labour doesn’t get re-elected without our rural and coastal MPs.
"So we need to dial down the regional division and significantly dial up engagement with areas where there may be a preconceived stereotype of what life is really like for those communities.
A Labour MP in a different coastal constituency was more positive about 'Manchesterism'. They suggested that some of their colleagues were taking the term too literally, telling PoliticsHome it is "just a word for a politics which recognises that growth has to be driven locally, with local and national government making the right interventions to enable it.
"That can apply in areas like mine every bit as much (if not more) as in Manchester.”
