Number 10 North is for north London too

In his latest column, Dan Tomlinson MP says moving power to Manchester is good for Chipping Barnet

A man talking to a room full of people — Prime Minister Andy Burnham delivers a speech as he visits Jewish Care in Golders Green. Credit – Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street

When the prime minister says Number 10 North is about nothing less than remaking the British state, some people expect a north London MP to bristle. Why should power move to Manchester? What does my constituency get out of it?

My answer is that Number 10 North is for north London too.

Let me give you an example: housing.

I grew up on free school meals and was homeless for a time as a child, so housing has always been a cause very close to my heart.

I’ve lost count now of the number of times I’ve met constituents in my patch of north London, who are into their thirties and forties and yet still living with their parents despite dearly wanting a place of their own.

Some make it – and I am very thankful to my in-laws who allowed my wife and I to live with them to help us save for a deposit – but for many, a dream just simply out of reach.

Thousands across my constituency and the whole of London are left to consider constantly: how big a deposit will I need to be able to buy? What else can I do to scrape together more savings? How can I afford the essentials next month once I’ve paid my rent?

Much of this is because our economy is flying on just one (London-shaped!) engine.

In fact, the UK is the most regionally imbalanced large economy in the world. We are the only country of our size with just one big city whose productivity sits above the national average.

Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham are fantastic places, but measured against Munich, Lille and Barcelona they are underperforming economically, as are many of the towns and villages around them.

And that hurts London too, because London absorbs the consequences. Millions across the country face a choice: stay near mum and dad near where you’re from and compete for the relatively few high-productivity jobs nearby – or move south to London and its surrounds. Millions choose to move south.

The result is a London housing market that is profoundly overheated, not to mention some of the longest average commute times in Europe. This has become normalised. Yet it need not be so.

So, what does the vision of Number 10 North that the prime minister has expounded mean for a constituency like mine of Chipping Barnet in north London?

First, if cities like Manchester and Leeds were to offer more of the economic opportunity that London offers, fewer people are forced to make the journey down south. That is not London losing out. That is pressure coming off London’s housing market, its hospitals, its transport network, its schools.

Second, devolution is not something that happens to London. It is something London gets too! Every argument for giving a city like Greater Manchester real control over transport, skills and land is an argument for giving the capital the same.

If the Mayor of London could raise money through a visitor levy and put it towards local infrastructure (for example extending transport networks such as the DLR or the Bakerloo Line), that means that Londoners are better off.

A greater say over business rates would let London back its own growth sectors rather than waiting on a Whitehall spending round.

Third, the fixes are complementary rather than competing. London’s binding constraint is homes. The rest of the country’s binding constraint is connectivity. It is harder to travel between our northern cities than between comparable cities anywhere else in Europe. That must change. Building greater transport connections across the country doesn’t take away opportunity from London: when the rest of the country thrives, London is better able to thrive.

That is why I am taking up the role of growth minister with real excitement and looking forward to working out of Number 10 North.

It is a major step towards a more united country; to one in which the whole country is thriving.

Opportunity has never been evenly spread across this country. Too many people have grown up being told that to get on in life, they had to get out.

What Number 10 North offers instead is empowerment: communities with the ability to do more for themselves, to shape the places they live rather than wait on somebody else’s permission.

And that applies to London every bit as much as to Manchester, to Swansea, to Stirling, to Belfast. As communities right across the United Kingdom are empowered, we get more places that succeed. And places that succeed are the bedrock of a stronger economy, which is what pays for everything else we care about.

A good school for your kids. Streets where you feel safe to walk home. A hospital appointment when you need one. A home you can actually afford. The ability to go on that summer holiday you were looking forward to.

So I welcome Number 10 North. Not because London’s turn is over, but because we are all part of one national story, and a country where every community can do more for itself is a country where my constituents do better too.

Dan Tomlinson is Labour MP for Chipping Barnet. He is Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury and minister for growth. An earlier version of this piece appeared in the Evening Standard

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