Prime Minister Andy Burnham used a speech in Motherwell on 16 October 2026 to make a formal offer to the Scottish Government: work with Westminster on a new model of regional economic empowerment across Scotland. According to the GOV.UK transcript and the accompanying Downing Street press notice, the proposal would cover innovation, enterprise and employability funding, alongside a wider transfer of decision-making to local areas. (gov.uk) The speech was framed less as a constitutional intervention than as a delivery plan. Burnham tied the case for reform to jobs, skills, transport, housing, infrastructure and employment support, arguing that economic policy should be shaped closer to the communities expected to deliver it. (gov.uk)
Burnham's central argument was that devolution should not stop at Holyrood. He described the next phase as deep devolution: not merely moving powers from Westminster to the Scottish Parliament, but moving them further down to regions, cities and communities. (gov.uk) The Downing Street press release sharpened that case by describing Scotland as one of the most centralised devolved administrations in Europe and by urging First Minister John Swinney to work through No10 North and the Scotland Office on a new settlement for Scotland's regions. That makes the speech a direct invitation to share authority beyond both London and Edinburgh. (gov.uk)
The most concrete new element was an offer of DWP devolution. Burnham said he wanted Scotland to have a model of localised employment support, shaped by Holyrood but designed around local need, and he linked that offer to the person-centred approach he had previously seen in Easterhouse and later adapted in Greater Manchester. (gov.uk) In policy terms, this would extend an already active devolution settlement rather than start a new one. The Scotland Office's tenth report on the Scotland Act 2016 says the Act devolved significant social security and employment support powers, while DWP's Scottish Devolution Programme closed on 31 March 2026 after completing its major milestones. Scottish Government statistics also show that its No One Left Behind employability approach recorded 111,300 starts between April 2019 and March 2026, with around 32% of participants entering employment. Burnham's proposal therefore appears to be aimed at pushing employability support further towards local commissioning and joined-up delivery. (gov.uk)
Burnham used recent joint announcements as proof of concept. In the speech he welcomed the Scottish Government's decision to match the UK Government's £10 million for two Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, one in the east of Scotland and one in the west. A Scotland Office and Ministry of Defence press release published the same day said the colleges form part of a £50 million Scottish Defence Growth Deal and sit within a defence sector supported by more than 12,000 jobs in Scotland. (gov.uk) He applied the same logic to procurement and industrial policy. The speech pointed to Scottish shipbuilding, work on future investment at Grangemouth and a preference for public procurement that supports domestic manufacturing capacity, using Greater Manchester's purchase of Alexander Dennis buses built in Falkirk as the practical example. (gov.uk)
The speech also tried to move the debate beyond the existing deal model. Burnham acknowledged progress under Scotland's City Region Deals and Growth Deals, but argued that the next question is what powers and resources sit permanently at regional level. Scottish Government policy pages say every region in Scotland now has a signed City or Regional Growth Deal, with Scottish Government investment totalling more than £1.9 billion. (gov.uk) The practical shift under discussion is from time-limited programmes to standing regional authority over economic development. Burnham explicitly raised the possibility of deeper regional control over skills, transport, investment, infrastructure and housing, but neither the speech nor the Downing Street press notice set out a final governance structure or statutory route. (gov.uk)
That offer arrives while the Scottish Government is already running its own reform process. In September 2026, ministers launched an intensive dialogue on local governance reform and published an initial proposal that included replacing the current council structure with a smaller number of regional authorities alongside a larger number of community authorities. (gov.scot) COSLA's response to Burnham's speech was supportive on principle but cautious on process. Its vice-president said subsidiarity matters, but stressed that any model of regional empowerment would require early and meaningful engagement with Scottish local government. For practitioners, that is a reminder that the next argument is not only about Westminster and Holyrood; it is also about where councils, regional partnerships and existing delivery bodies sit in any new system. (cosla.gov.uk)
Burnham said the National Economic Council would meet in the coming weeks with the First Ministers of Scotland and Wales and the First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and that he intended to put the Scottish offer on the table there. The speech therefore creates an immediate intergovernmental route for further work, even though no bill, fiscal package or formal agreement has yet been published. (gov.uk) The immediate policy questions are technical rather than rhetorical. The UK Government has floated devolution of innovation, enterprise and employability funding, and Burnham said Scotland's regions should also be able to explore stronger control over transport, infrastructure, skills and investment. The next stage will depend on whether both governments can specify funding lines, accountability arrangements and the regional bodies that would hold the new powers. (gov.uk)
For policy readers, the significance of the Motherwell speech lies in its attempt to turn devolution into a delivery question. Burnham's claim was that reindustrialisation will not be secured by national announcements alone unless regions can connect colleges, employers, employment support and local services around actual labour markets. That is consistent with the speech's repeated emphasis on person-centred support and with Scottish Government evidence showing a substantial existing employability infrastructure through No One Left Behind. (gov.uk) Whether that becomes a new Scottish settlement now depends on two separate decisions: whether Westminster is prepared to release funding and discretion, and whether Holyrood is prepared to do the same. The offer is now explicit, but the detailed test will be whether the UK Government, the Scottish Government and local government can turn it into an agreed model rather than another short-lived announcement. (gov.uk)