Andy Burnham wants to revolutionise how England is run. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has spent years arguing that taking power away from Whitehall and handing it to local leaders is the magic key to unlocking economic growth. He calls it radical localism. It sounds great on paper. It makes for fantastic political speeches.
But it will not work on its own.
Devolution is a tool, not a cure. Giving regional mayors control over local buses, skills training, and housing budgets is a good start. It helps fix local headaches. However, it completely misses the massive structural flaws dragging down the UK economy as a whole. You cannot fix national productivity issues, an outdated planning system, and a severe lack of private investment just by shifting decision-making from London to Manchester.
The limits of the Manchester model
Greater Manchester has been the poster child for English devolution. Since the first major powers were handed over in 2014, the region has secured control over transport, health budgets, and adult education. The Bee Network—Burnham’s integrated public transport system—is a genuine achievement. It brought buses back under public control for the first time in decades.
That matters. It helps people get to work.
But look at the broader numbers. Despite a booming city centre filled with gleaming new skyscrapers, the wider region still struggles. Productivity gaps between the North and South remain massive. Shifting administrative powers around does not automatically create high-wage jobs or build factories.
Local leaders are still trapped within a system where central government holds the real financial purse strings. Whitehall still decides the overall size of the pie. Burnham might get to choose how to slice his portion, but he cannot bake a bigger one.
The real bottlenecks blocking UK growth
Localism fails to address the foundational crises in the British state. If a local council or a regional mayor wants to build a major new lab space or a manufacturing hub, they hit a wall.
That wall is the British planning system.
The UK planning framework is notoriously slow, unpredictable, and prone to local vetoes. It treats development as a threat rather than an opportunity. Mayors can draw up all the strategic frameworks they want, but national planning reform is required to make building fast and cheap.
Then there is the issue of private capital. The UK suffers from chronic underinvestment compared to other G7 nations. Shifting power to local regions does not fix this. British pension funds are historically risk-averse, preferring to invest in safe global equities rather than domestic infrastructure or growing regional businesses.
Fixing that requires major regulatory changes at the national level. It means reforming Solvency II rules and changing how pension pots are managed. Andy Burnham cannot do that from Manchester Town Hall.
National strategies must come first
Localism only works when it operates within a clear, ambitious national industrial strategy. Look at Germany. Their federal system works because it is backed by a powerful national framework that ensures regions have specific, distinct industrial strengths supported by federal institutions like the KfW banking group.
The UK does not have that. We have piecemeal deals. One city gets a bit of cash for biotech; another gets a small pot for green energy. It is fragmented.
Without national coordination, radical localism risks turning into a bidding war between different parts of the country. Manchester competes with Leeds, which competes with Birmingham. They fight over the same limited pool of international investment. It is inefficient.
We need a central government that sets a hard direction. National projects like upgrading the entire electricity grid to handle renewable energy cannot be managed by individual regional mayors. It requires a massive, coordinated national effort.
What actually needs to happen now
If the UK wants real economic growth, the government must stop treating devolution as the final destination. It is merely a step along the way.
First, the country needs wholesale planning reform. National targets must override local nimbyism to build houses, laboratories, and transport links quickly.
Second, the state must unlock domestic investment. Government needs to create structural incentives that force UK financial institutions to invest in British businesses and infrastructure.
Finally, devolution must evolve from a series of bespoke political deals into a stable, long-term constitutional settlement. Mayors need permanent, independent tax-raising powers so they can stop begging Whitehall for crumbs every few years.
Localism is useful for tailoring public services to local needs. It makes cities more liveable. But expecting it to fix a stagnant national economy is a delusion. It is time to focus on the big national fixes that matter.
