Reindustrialisation: Backbenchers Seek Manchester Control

A group of Labour backbenchers is pressing Andy Burnham to run his industrial rebuilding programme from the Manchester office known as No 10 North.

A briefing paper circulated by more than 90 MPs argues that decades of factory closures and deregulation have stripped the state of the know-how needed to carry out such a plan. The document states that the government has become less informed about its own economy, unable to plan comprehensively, and slow to decide.

The MPs ask for a Reindustrialisation Act that would set targets for creating jobs by restoring manufacturing capacity and hold ministers to account against those figures. 'If we do not plan for reindustrialisation, we cannot achieve it,' the paper argues.

The group also wants first secretary Louise Haigh assigned oversight of the effort, with the work based at No 10 North. Burnham set up the Manchester outpost in July, and it has since taken on some responsibility for growth policy. The MPs further propose renaming the National Wealth Fund as a Reindustrialisation Development Corporation, with its main task being to supply capital for rebuilding UK industry.

Andy MacNae, MP for Rossendale and Darwen and chair of the group, said he had no doubt about the commitment of Burnham or chancellor John Healey. He described what he called a kind of inertia in government, within the civil service, and within economic orthodoxy that still treats growth policy as a matter of cities already doing well. Reindustrialisation, he said, must instead deliver jobs to the places that need them most.

Steve Yemm, MP for Mansfield, a former mining constituency, said countries around the world are rebuilding their industrial bases while many in Whitehall still regard industrial policy as 'dangerous nostalgia'. Lorraine Beavers, MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, said Whitehall does not fix a problem unless it is told to.

Healey told Labour's conference last month that Britain would enter 'a new age of industrialisation'. The party's industrial strategy, published while Keir Starmer was prime minister, named eight sectors for growth, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and defence. Healey delivers his first budget on Wednesday.