How refreshing to have a Prime Minister who gets the North but is devolution the cure for all of our ills? - Ismail Mulla

How refreshing it is to finally have a Prime Minister who understands that there is life north of the Watford Gap. If there is one thing that Andy Burnham cannot be accused of it is not knowing about the North and the challenges that it faces.

One of his first high-profile initiatives as PM was to establish a Number 10 North. It was more gesture than policy but it signalled to Northern voters that he was willing to break through that Westminster bubble.

Since then he has been full-throated in his support for devolution. This is a PM who had previously served as mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years. In that time he saw first-hand the frustrations that come with having to deal with an overly-centralised government. As mayor he butted heads many times with the government over decisions that short-changed.

The majority of people across regions like Yorkshire will welcome the idea of more say over our economic and political destiny. There are countless research papers showing that handing local leaders greater powers will yield better outcomes for the areas which they represent.

A key part of the puzzle though has to be fiscal autonomy. The ability for them to prioritise spending in their neighbourhoods. How anyone in Whitehall can understand the challenges faced by Yorkshire and remedy them from a desk in London is beyond me. And I am glad that the Prime Minister recognises this as well.

However, there is a risk that comes with fiscal devolution. The mayors may not like this but they should not be given unfettered access to large pots of cash. Before taxpayer money is handed over, sufficient guardrails need to be put in place.

Last week I met Sir Andy Street, the former Tory mayor of the West Midlands. He made the same point and floated the idea of local audit committees to help provide oversight of mayoral spending.

The danger is that handing over cash without sufficient oversight might result in local mayors also thinking in political cycles. And rather than addressing the big picture issues and facilitating economic growth they opt for the shiny projects that look good on election literature. That could not only lead to taxpayer money being squandered but also for political apathy to become further entrenched.

During our meeting, Sir Andy made another point that is worth considering and that is that devolution is not the “silver bullet” to all of Britain’s problems.

“Mayors are successful when it's really clear what they are responsible for, they have the cash for it and they have people that can get on with it,” he told me.

That is where the PM needs to be careful. There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks from the Burnham Government about how the mayors will be given powers to fix this and fix that. For example oversight of the water companies sounds like a bridge too far for mayors who have other priorities to also deal with.

As Sir Andy said: “They can’t just have everything flung at them because they will not have the resources and will end up failing to deliver. That will actually dent the model.”

There’s also a danger for the PM that devolution becomes a cop out for the government. That it lacks any new ideas of substance.

The other issue with fiscal devolution is that even within mayoralties there will be competing priorities. And as we’re seeing with the debate around the tourism tax, more affluent areas will want to see greater expenditure on their neighbourhoods. While a key tenet of devolution is bridging long-standing inequalities. That is a circle that mayors will have to carefully square.

Aside from devolution, it was interesting to hear the views of Sir Andy on the dynamics of the Tory party. He says that Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has been right to shore up the party’s right flank against the growing threat of Nigel Farage and Reform UK, however he urged the Conservatives to seek the centre ground.

His argument is a sensible one that there are plenty of disaffected soft Labour and Lib Dem voters for the Tories to target. One area where Lord David Cameron excelled was building a broad church that ultimately delivered a majority for the Conservatives.

Sir Andy believes that the threat from Reform is subsiding with polling beginning to show a softening of support. However, in a volatile world both major parties need to keep their guard up.

That is why for the Labour Government, Chancellor John Healey’s Budget on October 28 will be key.