The Government are making much of Andy Burham’s history as Mayor of Greater Manchester and how it will shape his plans, although they aren’t highlighting that he isn’t the first Prime Minister with a mayoral background.

Boris Johnson served two successful terms as London Mayor, covering our capital city that has over three times the population of Greater Manchester.  It is also worth noting that it was the previous Conservative Government that rolled out devolution across many city regions, including Greater Manchester.

Mayoral experience is useful, but it’s a very different role from being Prime Minister, something which I think Boris understood, but which I’m not sure Andy Burnham does. It’s not something that can just be scaled up and replicated at a national level.

We are already on a journey of having mayors rolled out across the rest of the country, including here in Sussex.  This was originally planned to start this year with a mayoral election for the new Sussex Mayor, but that has been delayed for two years and will now take place in May 2028.         

For existing and new mayors, the new PM has stated he wants them to have more powers.  Policies like mayors having a share of income tax and greater retention of business rates, known as fiscal devolution, may look like a good thing, but not everything is as it seems.  It appears that the type of devolution we will get will only be on a high-tax high-spending basis.

This was evidenced when the Conservative Mayor of Tees Valley, Ben Houchen, said he would look to create a rebate scheme to put some money back into the pockets of the families who earned it.  He received an instant answer from the Government which was a big fat No.  He was told it was “not in their gift” for mayors and that all monies raised had to be spent.

This is top-down devolution and powers, such as some Planning decisions and Fire and Rescue Services, are being taken away from Councils and ‘devolved upwards’ to Mayors, taking decision making further away from local communities.    

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

26th August 2026