It’s not every day a prime minister promises to hand over a slice of the nation’s income tax to a man in a coat, but here we are.
Keir Starmer has unveiled plans to give regional mayors, including Greater Manchester’s Andy Burnham, a share of income tax revenues generated in their areas. The idea, framed as a major devolution push, is meant to give local leaders genuine financial firepower rather than the usual drip-feed of ring-fenced grants from Whitehall.
Starmer says the move will bring power to “every postcode” in England, shifting decisions on spending and investment out of Westminster and into the hands of people who actually live in these places. It sounds bold. Whether it is bold remains, for now, a matter of some debate.
Critics, including several within Starmer’s own party, have pointed out that the announcement is notably light on specifics. What percentage of income tax are we actually talking about? Which mayors qualify? When does this start? The government hasn’t said, and that ambiguity is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
The principle is right, but principles don’t build hospitals or fix potholes. The detail is everything, and right now the detail simply isn’t there.
That sentiment is being echoed in policy circles, where there’s cautious enthusiasm tempered by the memory of previous devolution promises that quietly dissolved between the announcement and the legislation.
For Burnham, though, this is the direction of travel he’s been pushing for years. Greater Manchester already controls significant chunks of transport, housing, and health planning. Genuine fiscal autonomy, even partial, would be a meaningful step up from the current arrangement where local leaders are essentially spending money the Treasury has already decided to give them.
The politics of it are interesting too. With Reform doing well in parts of the North and Midlands, giving popular regional figures like Burnham more visible power and more visible money to spend could be a shrewd piece of political positioning for Labour.
Whether the fine print, when it eventually arrives, matches the ambition of the headline is the question everyone’s waiting to answer.
