90 Labour MPs Demand Reindustrialisation HQ in Manchester

More than 90 Labour backbench MPs have issued a warning that Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s reindustrialisation pledge is doomed unless it is driven from No 10 North in Manchester. The group argues that the government has lost the detailed understanding of industry required to reverse decades of deindustrialisation and deregulation.

Burnham has positioned the rebuilding of the UK’s industrial capacity as central to his promise of good growth in every postcode. His first budget, to be delivered by Chancellor John Healey on Wednesday, follows Healey’s conference speech last month where he promised a new age of industrialisation.

The backbenchers’ briefing paper contends that the state has become less knowledgeable about the economy and slower to make decisions. It states that the government has acquired a worrying set of behaviours that will inhibit the push for new manufacturing capacity.

The group is calling for a Reindustrialisation Act to set clear job creation targets and hold ministers accountable. They want the prime minister to assign oversight of this effort to first secretary Louise Haigh, based at the Manchester outpost Burnham established in July. The paper also proposes converting the National Wealth Fund into a Reindustrialisation Development Corporation to provide capital for rebuilding industry.

Andy MacNae, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen and chair of the group, expressed doubt about the government’s current approach. He described a kind of inertia in the civil service that still views growth policy as focused on cities that are already doing well. MacNae said the strategy must instead deliver jobs to places that need them most and manufacture goods that provide national resilience.

Steve Yemm, MP for Mansfield, noted that countries around the world are reindustrialising while Whitehall treats industrial policy as dangerous nostalgia. Lorraine Beavers, MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, added that Whitehall does not fix problems unless it is told to. Labour’s previous industrial strategy identified eight sectors for growth, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy, and defence.

The new proposal aims to centralise these efforts in Manchester, moving away from the distributed approach taken during the previous administration under Keir Starmer.