{"id":7042018,"date":"2026-08-19T19:04:01","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:04:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/uncategorized\/can-andy-burnham-rewire-the-treasury-brain-to-boost-growth-economic-growth-gdp\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T19:04:01","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:04:01","slug":"can-andy-burnham-rewire-the-treasury-brain-to-boost-growth-economic-growth-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=7042018","title":{"rendered":"Can Andy Burnham rewire the \u2018Treasury brain\u2019 to boost growth? | Economic growth (GDP)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Andy Burnham is far from the first prime minister to dream of taming the power of the mighty Treasury.<\/p>\n

Boris Johnson all but forced the resignation of Sajid Javid<\/a> by handpicking his team; Margaret Thatcher favoured her economic adviser Alan Walters over Nigel Lawson, prompting the latter\u2019s furious resignation; and Tony Blair and Gordon Brown\u2019s power struggle was the stuff of Whitehall legend.<\/p>\n

Burnham\u2019s approach harks further back still to Labour prime minister Harold Wilson\u2019s Department for Economic Affairs (DEA), a short-lived attempt to bring long-term thinking to British economic policymaking.<\/p>\n

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The PM made the historical analogy as he gave fresh details this week of his plan to take control of growth policy from the Treasury and hand it to a new No 10 department in Manchester<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The DEA was responsible for drawing up a national plan for the economy, which began<\/a> with the timeless exhortation: \u201cWe must pay our way in the world and produce more wealth inside this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The baleful influence of the Treasury, with its stranglehold over the public finances, has long been lamented by leftwingers, who accuse it of short-term thinking and ingrained, institutional caution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dual job of growth and control of the public finances sometimes clouds the growth mission,\u201d Burnham told the Times. \u201cHaving No 10 leading on that growth mission means you\u2019ve got maximum power to unlock the blockages where they exist in the Whitehall system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the most criticised decisions of Keir Starmer\u2019s tenure were seen by many Labour MPs as resulting from this \u201cTreasury brain\u201d \u2013 from slashing winter fuel allowance to caving in to City lobbying on a bank windfall tax.<\/p>\n

Burnham hopes the new prime minister\u2019s department, overseen by his powerful cabinet ally Louise Haigh<\/a>, will open the space for some fresh thinking. \u201cThe new No 10 North innovation is more significant than people realise,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

<\/svg><\/span>Burnham ally Louise Haigh oversees No 10 North.<\/span> Photograph: Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Burnham\u2019s route to growth runs through devolution<\/h2>\n

One of the few detailed policy publications the new cabinet has so far produced was on radical plans for devolution. The PM hopes handing additional powers to metro mayors will help bring together growth policies now scattered across Whitehall.<\/p>\n

Ruth Curtice, director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank and a former longtime Treasury official, says coordinating across these different policy areas \u2013 housing, education, planning and so on \u2013 could be the most effective use of the new Manchester-based unit.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one department has all of the levers \u2013 the Treasury don\u2019t own all of the levers,\u201d she says. \u201cI would see it as a positive thing that this No 10 says, \u2018Given what a priority this is, we\u2019re going to put more force behind it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Brown adviser Michael Jacobs, emeritus professor of political economy at the University of Sheffield, draws a comparison with the Office for Climate Change, which helped to coordinate policy across government.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe really interesting version of this to me would be a new growth unit, drawing on and made up of officials from all the relevant departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanjay Raja, chief UK economist at Deutsche Bank, points out that Burnham\u2019s pick for chancellor, John Healey, was instrumental in the creation of regional development agencies, way back in the Blair-Brown era.<\/p>\n

These were meant to bring a regional dimension to growth and industrial policy \u2013 but were scrapped by the 2010 Conservative-Lib Dem coalition. George Osborne went on to create and empower city region mayors as the focus for devolution.<\/p>\n

Given the pair\u2019s joint interest in devolution, Raja argues that far from clipping Healey\u2019s wings, \u201cthis is one of the more merged tag teams in No 10 and No 11 that we have seen\u201d.<\/p>\n

Treasury power is inescapable<\/h2>\n

Yet not everyone is convinced that it makes sense to create a policy counterweight to the Treasury. Former Conservative chief secretary to the Treasury David Gauke says the Treasury\u2019s control over tax and spend, which it will maintain under the shake-up, means it is inevitably powerful. \u201cThe Treasury is always going to be the most important department.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, he suspects stripping growth out of the Treasury\u2019s remit would just exaggerate its tendency to fixate on penny-pinching.<\/p>\n

He also questions whether No 10 North can work: \u201cYou\u2019re going to have this office, which will get at best a day a week of face-time with the PM, and little access to other ministers \u2013 and it will be trying to push the government in a more pro-growth direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

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