Labour cannot yet say what Burnham’s No 10 North costs taxpayers to run

Labour ministers have admitted they cannot yet put a figure on the annual running costs of Andy Burnham’s flagship No 10 North operation.

The Prime Minister launched the Manchester office in July as what the Government called “the engine room of devolution and good growth in every postcode”, and he now splits his time between Downing Street and No 10 North.

The admission came in written answers to Conservative MPs published on Wednesday, almost three months after the office opened. Alex Burghart, the Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, asked what estimate the Cabinet Office had made of No 10 North’s gross annual administrative cost, and which department’s budget would pay for it. Cabinet Office minister Mark Ferguson replied: “Gross annual administrative costs cannot yet be provided.” He said the costs “will be found from existing departmental budgets”, with teams moving across from other departments “expected to transfer with the relevant budget currently available to them”. The question is not new. In September, Conservative MP Dr Luke Evans asked about No 10 North’s operational and security running costs and was told that the cost of establishing it “is covered by existing departmental budgets”. Dr Evans then asked what had been spent refurbishing Heron House, the Manchester building where No 10 North is based. Mr Ferguson said no refurbishment had been carried out, that setting up the office had been paid for from the Cabinet Office’s existing budget, and that “associated costs will be accounted for in the Cabinet Office Annual Report and Accounts”. That matters because of the timing. The Cabinet Office’s accounts for 2025-26, a year that ended in March before No 10 North existed, were signed off by the National Audit Office only last month. The next set, which will cover No 10 North’s first months, is not due until next year. Yet the same minister had no difficulty giving Parliament a precise figure for a different office. In another answer published on Wednesday, Mr Ferguson said the annual estates cost of the Cabinet Office’s second headquarters in Glasgow was £2,557,541 in 2025-26. Moving government out of London is not a Labour invention. The previous Conservative government moved thousands of civil service roles out of the capital, including to that Glasgow headquarters, and there is a reasonable case for taking more decisions about the North in the North. Ministers can also fairly point out that the costs are being met from existing budgets rather than new money, and that no refurbishment was needed. But Labour is now the Government, and No 10 North is the Prime Minister’s own creation. The Machinery of Government statement in July went further than a regional office. It said No 10 North would take over local economic growth and devolution strategy from the housing department and local growth policy from the Treasury, describing it as “the dominant driver of the UK’s economy”. An office with that ambition should not be hard to cost. And “found from existing budgets” is not the same as free. Any extra cost of running No 10 North, from the building to the travel, comes out of budgets that would otherwise be spent on something else, and ministers have not said what gives. Asked separately what the wider Whitehall reorganisation announced in July would cost to put in place, ministers said only that the costs “will be met within existing departmental settlements”. Conservative frontbencher Mike Wood also asked whether No 10 North staff from London were on London or national pay rates. He was told: “No London-based staff are assigned permanently to the Manchester location.” Last week, asked whether hotels, train travel and subsistence for No 10 North staff commuting from London and the South East would be funded, the Cabinet Office said those costs are paid for official business travel, but ordinary commuting costs are not covered. Neither answer says how many officials work at No 10 North, or how often staff travel between Manchester and London. When No 10 North was unveiled in July, this website asked how much it had cost. The Government’s answer, so far, is that it cannot yet say. The questions for Labour are straightforward. How much is No 10 North costing each year? How many officials work there? What are the Cabinet Office, the Treasury and the housing department no longer doing to pay for it? And will ministers publish a figure before next year’s accounts? For an office billed as the engine room of growth in every postcode, “cannot yet be provided” is not much of a business plan.