This morning Andy Burnham addressed the nation in front of the People’s History Museum in Manchester. Promising what might be called “Manchesterism,” with increased living standards, local growth and a fundamental rewiring of political power, he made several significant pledges ahead of his Labour leadership campaign. With the leadership contest still unfolding and speculation mounting that a new Prime Minister could be in place as early as 20 July, what does today’s speech tell us about the kind of government Andy Burnham would lead and what could it mean for education and skills?
Devolution
At the heart of Burnham’s vision is a model of governance built from the bottom up. This would deepen and extend the devolution settlement already under way, moving decisively away from the centralised Whitehall model that has defined British policy for generations. The centrepiece announcement was “Number 10 North,” which he described as the nerve centre of a rewired Britain, designed to drive devolution across every nation and region of the UK.
This is a direction Policy Connect’s cross-party work has repeatedly highlighted as a priority for reform. Our Earning or Learning inquiry highlighted the importance of local skills pathways, calling on local and combined authorities to strengthen data sharing, work experience models and employment pipelines. Our forthcoming Trained for Tomorrow inquiry into NHS training pathways similarly identifies regional coordination as essential to building a resilient health workforce. The principle of locally-led delivery, matched with national strategic coherence, is one Burnham appears to share.
Raising Living Standards
Alongside the structural reforms, Burnham acknowledged the broader material support people need to access opportunity. Plans for more social housing and reduced household bills were accompanied by a pointed reference to Greater Manchester’s publicly controlled bus network as proof of concept. Burnham sets out devolution as a practical tool for improving daily lives, not an abstract constitutional project.
Our Earning or Learning report reinforced this connection, finding that affordable transport and stable housing are not peripheral to skills policy but central to it. However, Burnham’s speech had notable gaps. The question of how financial support interacts with existing benefit structures was left largely unaddressed. Our report called on the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education to align the benefits system with skills participation, so that young people are not penalised for choosing to learn or train. Whether a Burnham government would take that step remains to be seen.
Work Experience, Apprenticeships and Technical Education
Burnham drew on the Milburn review and his own Manchester experience to emphasise the value of work-based learning. This is ground Policy Connect knows well. Both Earning or Learning and Trained for Tomorrow have demonstrated the real value of apprenticeships while also documenting the challenges of delivering them at scale.
The attention is welcome, but important operational questions remain unanswered. At a recent event with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Skills, Careers and Employment, we heard from employers about competing demands on local businesses, multiple institutions vying for limited employer capacity, and the bureaucratic complexity of taking on a young person. These pressures fall particularly hard on small and medium-sized enterprises with limited HR capacity. Ambition in this space is necessary, but so is a plan for making the logistics work. Rhetoric about the value of apprenticeships, without serious attention to operational realities, risks repeating a cycle this sector knows all too well.
What About Universities?
One of the more thought-provoking tensions in today’s speech concerned universities. Early on, Burnham committed to placing them at the heart of local economies, recognising their multiple roles as anchor institutions, innovation hubs and social mobility pathways. This resonates with our Trained for Tomorrow work, which has seen universities delivering NHS training, hosting clinical placements and experimenting with flexible, modular modes of delivery well beyond the traditional degree.
Later, however, Burnham called for a shift away from the over-focus on the university route in schools, in favour of greater parity for technical education. The principle of parity of esteem is one Policy Connect has consistently championed. Our Earning or Learning inquiry went further, calling for school accountability frameworks to actively recognise and embed vocational and technical pathways, so that the structures by which schools are judged reflect the full range of routes available to young people. But framing universities and technical education as distinct or competing paths risks oversimplification.
But framing universities and technical education as distinct or competing paths risks oversimplification. Universities often deliver technical education. Many have strong partnerships with further education colleges and employers rather than competing with them. And they remain a vital route for working-class aspiration, the very ideal Burnham himself invoked. Moving towards flexible, non-traditional pathways is important, and our own inquiry work supports that shift. But universities must be part of that diversified landscape, not positioned against it.
Everything Needs Skills
Beyond the specific education announcements, Burnham set out a broader economic vision: investing in British businesses, establishing good growth funds and positioning the UK as a world-leading innovation nation. These are bold and welcome ambitions.
But they all rest on a foundation the speech did not fully address: a well-supported education sector capable of delivering on them. Throughout his remarks, Burnham called on education providers to serve national economic goals. What was less visible was a clear-eyed account of the pressures those providers are currently under. Teacher and lecturer shortages, budget cuts across further education, and redundancies at universities are a direct threat to the very pipeline much of what Burnham promises depends upon.
A government serious about good growth in every postcode will need to be equally serious about the conditions in which educators are expected to deliver it.
