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Burnham defends cost of opening No 10 North
Andy Burnham has defended the cost of opening No 10 North in Manchester, telling “London-based” critics that it’s better to have “a north pole that balances the south pole”.
Speaking to staff at the new centre, he said: “At least it creates that sense of a more balanced country, and that big things can be done from here.”
Heron House is temporarily accommodating No 10 North while a brownfield site just outside the city is being developed, where it is expected to relocate permanently once construction is complete.
As my colleagues Hannah Al-Othman and Priya Bharadia reported earlier this month, any “No 10” buildings “could be constructed without significant cost above that already signed off by the Treasury”.
On other costs, they wrote:
Dai Davies, a former head of royal protection and a former divisional commander in the Metropolitan police, dubbed Burnham’s Manchester base as “Number 10A”.
“Number 10A will have to be strengthened,” he said, “and, of course, there’ll have to be a 24-hour-7 protection. So it’s going to cost us taxpayers millions in terms of technical security, surveillance, cameras.
“Depending on where it is, it may have to have underground detection systems, it probably will have to have a safe room, and Manchester police will have to bear the burden of protection, in the uniform sense, 24-7, I suspect. So the real cost is many millions of pounds.”
Read more here:
Key events
The prime minister told regional mayors that No 10 North was “at your service” during a national economic council meeting.
Referring to Labour mayors Tracy Brabin and Steve Rotheram and Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns by name, Andy Burnham said: “You know what you want to do and yet you kind of feel you’re arguing in different places across Whitehall to try and get people to listen.
“What I’m trying to do here is make the UK one team where we’re all pulling behind you, because your places are where growth happens, or it doesn’t happen.”
Andy Burnham joked that he might be in trouble with his wife for referring to his first day at No 10 North as “the best day of my life”.
“I think I’m probably going to be in trouble at home over the weekend because my other half might have some other views about what should be the best day of my life,” he said as he opened a meeting of the national economic council at the new base in Manchester.
As Andy Burnham wraps up his first working week as prime minister, here is a recap of what he’s announced since entering Downing Street:
It might have been the best day of Burnham’s life (see post at 12:03), but it was certainly a day one Manchester couple will never forget, as they tied the knot at No 10 North on his first day working there.
Manchester Evening News reporter Iram Ramzan spoke to a couple who got married at Heron House, the same building that is also temporarily accommodating the prime minister’s new northern base.
“Hazel and Martin got married inside Heron House today, and were happy their big day coincided with Andy Burnham’s first day at No 10 North,” Ramzan wrote on X, with a picture of the newlyweds.
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Ed Davey: ‘Burnham must stand up to Trump’
The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Ed Davey, has urged the prime minister to “stand up to Trump” after the US president imposed a fresh round of tariffs on more than 80 countries.
Ranging from 10% to 12.5%, the new tariffs take effect today as a temporary levy on global imports expired.
As my colleague Gaya Gupta explains here: “It’s Donald Trump’s latest effort to continue imposing global levies without congressional approval, despite the supreme court ruling in February that found the US president had illegally used his executive power to implement his global trade policies.”
In a post on X, Davey said: “Donald Trump is doubling down on his reckless trade war, after his last tariff tantrum was ruled illegal.
“He’s a bully and an unreliable ally.
“We can’t have continuity Starmer. Andy Burnham must stand up to Trump.”
For more updates on US politics, follow our live blog here:
Josh Halliday
Staff employed by MPs are calling for urgently tightened security after reports of some being physically attacked and hundreds receiving threatening calls and messages.
A survey of more than 500 MPs’ staff members found that 78% had received threatening communication and nearly one in three fear for their own safety or that of colleagues.
Andy Burnham, the prime minister, is planning to announce a review of MPs’ security after the murder of Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokesperson, this month. Joshua Kerry, 28, from Rotherham, South Yorkshire, has been charged with her murder.
In a survey of more than 500 staff working for MPs, 30% said they “frequently, very frequently or always” fear for their own or colleagues safety – up from 18.7% five years ago.
Seventy three MPs’ staffers said they were “very frequently or frequently” exposed to racist or prejudiced language from visitors, while one in four said they had felt pressure at least sometimes to comply with requests that might compromise their safety.
Read more:
The SNP has urged the prime minister to go “further and faster” on the spiralling cost of living, claiming families in Scotland will see “no meaningful benefit” from measures announced in his first week.
In his inaugural cabinet meeting, Andy Burnham told ministers they would be a “cost-of-living government”, before announcing plans to cut VAT on electricity bills.
He also announced a £2 cap on bus fares, which will not impact directly on Scotland due to transport being devolved.
But, with mortgage costs increasing and the price of oil rising, the SNP’s economy spokesperson, Kirsty Blackman, said:
Andy Burnham must go much further and faster to help households with the soaring cost of living in the UK, and to reverse the damage done under the Labour government, which has left many people hundreds of pounds worse off.
Families in Scotland will get no meaningful benefit from the changes announced so far, which are far too small to make a real difference.
David Whitehouse, the chief executive of industry body Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), said there is an “overwhelming” case for the controversial Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas projects to go ahead, despite the objections of environmentalists.
He spoke out on the issue as reports claimed that the government could approve them as early as August.
Such a move could be part of what Whitehouse described as a “powerful reset for the sector that shows that the Burnham government is supporting British industry”.
The OEUK chief executive told the Press Association: “What would be really significant, and what we look for now, is for this UK government to say while we use oil and gas we back our own production, that is what we want to hear.
“That would be significant, and what would flow from that I believe is positive decisions about Jackdaw and Rosebank.”
Climate campaigners continue to object to the planned developments.
Andy Burnham was joined by senior ministers chancellor John Healey and first secretary of state Louise Haigh at the new No 10 North base in Manchester.
Burnham defends cost of opening No 10 North
Andy Burnham has defended the cost of opening No 10 North in Manchester, telling “London-based” critics that it’s better to have “a north pole that balances the south pole”.
Speaking to staff at the new centre, he said: “At least it creates that sense of a more balanced country, and that big things can be done from here.”
Heron House is temporarily accommodating No 10 North while a brownfield site just outside the city is being developed, where it is expected to relocate permanently once construction is complete.
As my colleagues Hannah Al-Othman and Priya Bharadia reported earlier this month, any “No 10” buildings “could be constructed without significant cost above that already signed off by the Treasury”.
On other costs, they wrote:
Dai Davies, a former head of royal protection and a former divisional commander in the Metropolitan police, dubbed Burnham’s Manchester base as “Number 10A”.
“Number 10A will have to be strengthened,” he said, “and, of course, there’ll have to be a 24-hour-7 protection. So it’s going to cost us taxpayers millions in terms of technical security, surveillance, cameras.
“Depending on where it is, it may have to have underground detection systems, it probably will have to have a safe room, and Manchester police will have to bear the burden of protection, in the uniform sense, 24-7, I suspect. So the real cost is many millions of pounds.”
Read more here:
‘Best day of my life,’ Burnham says of first day in No 10 North in Manchester
Andy Burnham has described his first day at No 10 North in Manchester as the “best day of my life”.
Speaking to staff and ministers at the newly opened centre of government in Heron House in the city centre, the prime minister said:
I cannot tell you what a proud moment this is. I think this might be the best day of my life. I’m not joking either. I know you think I am, but I’m not.
Things are just completely coming full circle here for me, and to be here with you all in the heart of Manchester this Friday morning, at the end of a fairly big week, is just everything to me.
It’s almost exactly 35 years since I left this city as a recently graduated young man who couldn’t find a job in the city. It was in a pretty bad place at that time, it’s fair to say, the 80s had turned into the 90s, there wasn’t much.
That really is an experience that I’ve never forgotten, my generation of people growing up here. And it’s true of places all over the country to get on in life, you had to leave where you were, because things weren’t here.
He added that No 10 North was about “putting power in every postcode”.
Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader and now parliamentary leader of Your Party, described Angela Rayner’s comments this morning ruling out rent controls as “extremely disappointing”.
As reported earlier, the housing secretary said she is not looking at bringing in rent controls, and that changes made through renters’ rights legislation brought in under Labour so far “are already having a significant impact on the market”.
In a post on X, Corbyn said: “There is no hope of ending homelessness if we do not stand up to vested interests and take action against extortionate private rents.
“We need rent controls, and we need them now.”
While we wait to see what comes of the first No 10 North meeting, here is a handy explainer of the makeup of Andy Burnham’s cabinet, in charts:
It has been pointed out that the prime minister is heading the wrong way on a one-way street:
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