Labour MPs Urge Burnham to Run Reindustrialisation From No 10 North or Risk Failure

A group of more than 90 Labour backbench MPs is warning that Andy Burnham's pledge to reindustrialise Britain is doomed unless it is driven decisively from No 10 North, his new outpost in Manchester.

The prime minister has suggested that rebuilding the UK's industrial capacity will be central to his promise of "good growth in every postcode". John Healey, who delivers his first budget on Wednesday, used his speech at Labour's conference last month to promise a "new age of industrialisation".

But a new briefing paper from the backbench group, seen by the Guardian, argues that decades of deindustrialisation and deregulation have left the government without the detailed understanding of industry that such a plan requires. "The state has lost capacity and has acquired a worrying set of behaviours which will inhibit reindustrialisation," it says. It adds that the state has become less knowledgeable about the economy and businesses, unable to plan comprehensively and slow to make decisions.

The MPs want Burnham to pass a Reindustrialisation Act that would set clear targets for creating jobs by rebuilding manufacturing capacity, and would hold ministers to account against them. "If we do not plan for reindustrialisation, we cannot achieve it," the group argues.

The paper also urges the prime minister to give responsibility for overseeing the effort to first secretary Louise Haigh, and to base it at No 10 North. Burnham set up that Manchester outpost in July, and it has already taken on some responsibility for growth policy. In addition, the group says the National Wealth Fund, the arm's-length body that invests in promising businesses, should become a Reindustrialisation Development Corporation whose main job is providing capital to rebuild UK industry.

Andy MacNae, the MP for Rossendale and Darwen, who chairs the group, said he had no doubt about the commitment of Burnham or Healey. However, he described "a kind of inertia in government, within the civil service, within economic orthodoxy, that still says that growth policy is about cities", meaning places that are already doing well. He said reindustrialisation must instead be about "delivering jobs to the places that need them most" and "making the things that give us national resilience in a turbulent world". He pointed to the government's recent decision to nationalise British Steel, and said the effort spans policy areas from procurement to education.

Steve Yemm, MP for the former mining constituency of Mansfield, said countries around the world are reindustrialising, while too many in Whitehall still treat industrial policy as "dangerous nostalgia". He called for the prime minister's full backing to challenge those assumptions.

Lorraine Beavers, MP for Blackpool North and Fleetwood, said she was enthusiastic about what reindustrialisation could mean for constituencies like hers. She cautioned, though: "If I have learned anything since becoming an MP two years ago, it's that Whitehall doesn't fix a problem unless it is told to."

Labour's industrial strategy, published while Keir Starmer was prime minister, identified eight sectors ripe for growth, including advanced manufacturing, clean energy and defence. In his conference speech, Healey, who had invited a young apprentice who worked on building a new Mersey ferry, said Labour would get Britain growing "with good work, good jobs and a new age of industrialisation".