Andy Burnham offers deeper devolution for Scotland

If 'devolution' sounds like one of those political words you are expected to decode later, Andy Burnham tried to make it plain in Motherwell on 16 October 2026. Speaking at a college on the former Ravenscraig site, the Prime Minister's offer was simple enough to follow: power should travel further away from London and Edinburgh and closer to Scotland's regions, towns and cities. In the official GOV.UK transcript and a Downing Street press release, that meant more local say over jobs, investment and economic decisions that are often taken far from the people who live with the result. (gov.uk) **What this means:** who controls buses, college training, employment support, research money and regeneration funding is not only a constitutional argument. Burnham was trying to turn it into a question about daily life: can your area build decent routes into work, fill empty shopfronts and give young people reasons to stay? (gov.uk)

Motherwell was not an accidental backdrop. Burnham used Ravenscraig to tell a wider story about deindustrialisation: places that helped build Britain, then paid the price when steelworks, pits and major employers went, with too many of the key choices made hundreds of miles away. He paired Motherwell's history with his own memories of Leigh after pit closures, arguing that communities were left to carry the damage long after the decision-makers had moved on. (gov.uk) For us as readers, that matters because the speech was about more than the machinery of government. It was really asking a harder question: when an area's biggest industry disappears, who gets to decide what comes next? Burnham's answer was that central government, whether in Westminster or elsewhere, has too often taken from places and then failed to trust them. He backed that up with examples of uneven transport, boarded-up high streets and sharp differences in life chances within Scotland itself. (gov.uk)

That is where his argument about devolution comes in. Scotland already has its own parliament and major devolved powers, and Burnham did not pretend otherwise. His case was that devolution was never meant to stop at Holyrood, and that the next stage should pass more decision-making to regions and cities inside Scotland. The Downing Street press release made the same point directly: the offer is for a new model of regional empowerment, worked out with the Scottish Government. (gov.uk) **In plain English:** Burnham was not arguing for Westminster to take control back. He was arguing for both Westminster and Holyrood to let go of some control, so more choices about transport, skills, innovation and employability can be made closer to the people using those services. That distinction is easy to miss if you only hear the word 'devolution' and not the level where the power would actually land. (gov.uk)

One of the most human parts of the speech came from Easterhouse in Glasgow. Burnham said a 2023 visit to FARE-Scotland changed how he thought about public services. He went expecting conversations about crime and violence reduction. Instead, he found a model built around opportunity: tailored routes for young people, links with employers, travel covered, and even help with clothes so interviews and appointments did not feel humiliating or out of reach. (gov.uk) He said that visit shaped Greater Manchester's Live Well model, and he kept returning to a short phrase: 'names not numbers'. That line works because it translates a policy argument into something you can picture. If support is designed close to home, staff can respond to the person in front of them, not just a target on a spreadsheet or a rigid programme built in a distant office. (gov.uk)

This was not only a speech about tone. Burnham also made a specific offer: a Scottish model of localised employment support, described by him as an offer of DWP devolution, shaped by Holyrood but linked to the deeper devolution approach now being used in England. He said the National Economic Council would meet the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales, along with Northern Ireland's leaders, in the coming weeks to put that offer on the table. (gov.uk) **Why you should care:** DWP is the UK department responsible for welfare, pensions and much employment support. So when Burnham talks about devolving part of that work, he is talking about a system that can affect benefits, job support and routes into work. He explicitly said he does not want another top-down scheme designed in the centre and imposed everywhere. (gov.uk)

Burnham also tried to show that this was not only a constitutional tidy-up. In Motherwell, he welcomed the Scottish Government's decision to match the UK Government's £10 million for two defence technical excellence colleges, one in the east and one in the west, and linked that to a defence sector he said already supports 12,000 jobs in Scotland. He also pointed to shipbuilding, Grangemouth, future energy jobs, food and farming, and changes to public procurement as areas where joint work between governments could make a visible difference. (gov.uk) The procurement example was one of the clearest in the whole speech. Burnham said that when Greater Manchester brought buses back under public control, he chose Alexander Dennis in Falkirk rather than treating the order as a hunt for the very lowest global price. His argument was that public spending should do more than buy a product; it should help keep skills, wages and industrial capacity in the places that need them. He used Dundee's games sector, the Highlands and Islands space industry, and Edinburgh's fintech firms to make the same point about future growth. (gov.uk)

There is a political risk in this approach, and it is worth naming. Burnham is challenging two centres of power at once: Westminster and Holyrood. Many speeches about Scotland stop at a fight between London and Edinburgh. This one asked both capitals to pass influence further down. That is our reading of the speech rather than a direct quote, but it helps explain why he kept repeating 'place first, not party first' and 'problem-solving, not point-scoring'. (gov.uk) It also explains the tension underneath the applause lines. Deeper devolution sounds attractive because it promises decisions that fit local realities, yet it also forces governments to surrender control, share credit and accept that places will not all choose the same priorities. Burnham was plainly betting that people are more interested in that practical trade-off than in another round of constitutional theatre. (gov.uk)

Scotland is not starting from zero here. Burnham acknowledged progress through City Region Deals and referred to the Scottish Government's longer-term reform plans for local government, but he argued that the pace has to increase and the next generation of regional powers has to go further. That means the speech now becomes a test: will either government move beyond warm words, and will local areas get real authority along with the money to use it? (gov.uk) If you want the shortest version, it is this. In Motherwell, Burnham said Scotland does not only need more power in Scotland; it needs more power in Scottish places. If that idea turns into policy, you would expect to notice the change not in ministerial speeches but in apprenticeships, bus routes, empty shops, local industries and whether young people feel their postcode still writes their future for them. (gov.uk)