A 'big offer' in search of common ground

Andy Burnham's devolution pitch to Scotland began with his own framing of how he governs. Speaking during his visit on 16 October 2026, the prime minister said his aim is to hand more power to people and places so they can change things for themselves, and he described what he brought as a serious and genuine offer to the Scottish government to put more control in the hands of local people.

He set out the thinking behind the approach: when he entered Downing Street in July, he said, he wanted to do politics differently, putting place first rather than party first. On the substance, he argued that the resources and decision-making powers sitting at regional level in Scotland need to be examined so that no Scottish city regions are left behind. He also pressed for local government reform in Scotland to move faster, warning that if change does not come now, Scotland could lose out.

The core of the message, in his own words, was this:

Ravenscraig and Leigh: the case for local control

To make the argument, Burnham reached for two communities on either side of the border that he said paid the price for decisions made far away:

• Ravenscraig, once the pride of Scotland's steel industry, employed tens of thousands before it closed in 1992. Burnham described it as a decision taken hundreds of miles away, and noted that more than 30 years on, work is still ongoing to fill the Ravenscraig site.
• Leigh, in the Lancashire coalfield, was in his telling equally let down by decisions in Westminster after the pits closed. He was the MP there for 16 years from the early 2000s, just after the pits shut in the 1990s.

He gave a human detail from those Leigh years: former miners shuffling into his surgery, carrying oxygen bottles and still struggling to get compensation. He also named Bickershaw Colliery as one of the last pits to close in the town.

Independence questions pushed aside

Burnham faced direct questions on the constitutional question during the visit. Asked by the BBC whether devolution makes him more or less likely to be the last UK prime minister, he replied: "Obviously, I don't want to be that."

Pressed by the Daily Record on whether he was ruling out a second independence referendum during his premiership, he argued that unions of countries are better because you can face a challenging world in a more confident and stronger way.

Too much time is wasted in constitutional dramas, he said, and it consumes too much energy, while people in Scotland are suffering the cost of living crisis like they are in England and everywhere else. He acknowledged a difference with John Swinney on independence, saying his own view will not change and the two should accept the disagreement and work on together.

His position did not go unchallenged. An SNP minister accused the prime minister of hypocrisy over his independence referendum stance.

Within the yes movement itself, there was a wider debate running. Scottish Green co-leader Gillian Mackay said independence is bigger than any party and that SNP supporters and Green supporters alone are not enough to win a second referendum. She is due to speak at the SNP's annual conference in Aberdeen tomorrow on a panel discussion about Scottish independence.

Swinney and Badenoch respond

The first secretary's reaction was warm on the surface. "The prime minister is very welcome in Scotland and I'll be interested to hear what he's got to say," John Swinney said ahead of the speech, adding that he will of course work with the prime minister on devolving more powers to Scotland. He pointed to his own record of working to make sure as many powers as possible are exercised here in Scotland.

The Conservative leader offered no such welcome. Kemi Badenoch, visiting the Malcolm Group near Glasgow, dismissed the devolution plans, saying: "I think that this is yet again a waste of time discussion."

Her argument was that the machinery of Scottish government does not need new authority. Holyrood and councils already have the powers they need, she said, and the focus should be on what the Scottish government does with them. Speaking to Sky News, she pressed the point on delivery: "What are they doing on education? What are they doing on health? They've got no answers."

By the end of the day, Burnham had finished his speech, which lasted about 35 minutes. Swinney's offer to work with the prime minister on devolving more powers stands, and the next scheduled moment in the independence debate comes tomorrow, when Gillian Mackay joins the panel at the SNP conference in Aberdeen.