Burnham's devolution plan won't work in Wales, former Labour minister says

Prime Minister Andy Burnham's call for governments to hand more powers down to regions and cities "just doesn't work" in Wales, a former Welsh government minister has said.

Lee Waters is one of two ex-Labour ministers who have criticised the UK government's push for Wales to hand more powers to local councils.

The other, Alun Davies, accused his Labour colleagues in Westminster of putting him through "hell" when he tried to reform councils in 2018.

Burnham appealed to Welsh and Scottish governments for "deeper devolution" when he met their first ministers last week, and said the UK's four nations must "move together" to devolve more to regions and cities.

The UK government was asked for comment.

Waters, who stepped down as Welsh transport minister in 2024 before leaving the Senedd at the last election, commented on Friday after former Manchester mayor Burnham's meeting with Welsh First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth in Glasgow.

Waters wrote on LinkedIn: "The term 'region' in an English context typically refers to an area covering between 1.5 and 3 million people. In Wales, regions cover much less dense areas.

"Transposing an English mayoral worldview onto a very different political geography just doesn't work. Wales may be a similar population size to the PMs old manor but that's where the parallel ends.

"His argument for England is that powers should flow from Westminster to city regions because they operate at an economically meaningful scale. Yet when the PM turns to Wales, he seems to suggest that powers already devolved to Cardiff Bay should be dispersed further down the system."

Waters said Burnham was not calling on his successor as Manchester mayor, Bev Craig, "to fragment the powers of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority".

He added Burnham wanted Wales to move "in the opposite direction" to Greater Manchester.

Following the meeting with Burnham on Friday, ap Iorwerth welcomed a "step forward" on more spending powers for the Welsh government.

But the first minister said further devolution within Wales is a matter for the Senedd, which controls local government.

However, ap Iorwerth had also promised to draw up a green paper on the powers local authorities have, and how they can work together regionally, with potential legislation after the next election in 2030.

Former Welsh local government minister Alun Davies told Radio Wales Breakfast on Monday he was also not sure that Burnham's plans to devolve more powers to English councils would work in Wales.

Davies, who lost his seat at May's Senedd election, had attempted to force mergers between Wales' 22 councils in 2018 in an attempt to reorganise and empower the local authorities.

After robust opposition from the Labour-dominated Welsh Local Government Association, Davies ditched the plans.

Davies said on Monday that he had been "stopped at every step of the way" by Labour MPs.

Davies said he was also disappointed by the recent £30m rail investment for Wales announced at the UK government budget, suggesting they were "crumbs off the table".

He said Burnham had brought in a new "approach", and he urged the current Welsh Secretary Stephen Kinnock to "read that memo and to understand what it means, because it doesn't mean delivering the same powers of a Manchester mayor to my local authority Blaenau Gwent".

Davies said that "you cannot pretend... that you can equate the tiny local authorities that we have in Wales with the big mayoral regions of England".

In a later interview with Dros Frecwast on Radio Cymru, Davies said: "In the same way that Stephen Kinnock's dad stood up to negative attitudes in the Labour party in the '80s and transformed the party, the son has to do the same thing today."

He said Kinnock should "stand up to his fellow members and say that Wales will be part of the process [and] part of the devolution journey".

"The important thing for me is that devolution doesn't come to an end at Offa's Dyke, and that Wales is treated the same as Northern Ireland, Scotland and England and we have the same powers as exists in the other countries of the UK," he added.

It was the last time the Welsh government tried to reform local government, which has a structure that dates back to the 1990s and includes some very small local authorities.

On Sunday Kinnock told Radio Wales' Sunday Supplement that the UK government fully respected the devolution settlement.

"We are absolutely not in the business of prescribing how this should work in Wales," he said.

"That's up to the Welsh government to draw that map, if you like.

He said that it was a "collaborative process".

"It's got to be UK government, Welsh government, local authorities working together to figure this stuff out." he said.