Why Future North
Now 80%, soon 100%!
They say your first Substack should be clear why you have started writing one.
For me, it is personal and professional.
Personally, amid much national and international gloom, I think this should be an optimistic time for the North of England. Over the next two years, the whole of the North will have a substantial devolution of power from Westminster.1 From 80% of the population having an elected mayor, we will soon hopefully have 100%. This compares to around 55% in the Midlands and 35% in the South (including the East of England).
For the first time in my lifetime, the North will have the agency to shape its future - transforming not only how politics operates, but also how the region sees itself. No longer a subject of decisions made elsewhere, but becoming an active agent of its own progress.
Growing up in West Yorkshire, it often felt like things happened elsewhere in the country. But it's not always been that way. Changes to bring power back give us more control over our destiny than at any time since at least the 1980s, perhaps even since the Second World War. To say nothing of the Industrial Revolution or the Kingdom of Northumbria.
Professionally, getting to this point feels like the culmination of much work that I have had a minor part in. For almost a decade, I worked in central government at HMRC and HM Treasury, with some brilliant people, but also observing a centralised process of financial allocation that seemed doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
In Spring 2020, amidst the lockdown, I started a long planned secondment to work at the Greater Manchester Combined Authority. This was my route back North, but it did not start with the buzz I had hoped for. I lived in Manchester through the early lockdowns and watched on in the crowd as Andy Burnham railed against a centralised system of decision making that he felt simply did not work for the people he represented.
Since then, I have worked at reforming how the government allocates money as the Treasury’s Head of the Green Book (and founding member of the Darlington Economic Campus) and developing economic plans and projects at Metro Dynamics. I’m currently the Director of Devolution Policy for Labour Together.
For example, I worked on the early development of the integrated settlements now being rolled out to mayors. This has already begun with Greater Manchester being given a £630m funding pot for this financial year. This funding freedom will be extended to the Liverpool City Region, the North East, South Yorkshire and West Yorkshire from April 2026.
So both personally and professionally I am invested in making the North’s newfound autonomy work - and work for the progress of its people.
This new Substack is a chronicle of this progress. My aim is to give detailed insight based on my expertise into the key developments, historic trends and great ideas driving progress across the North of England.
This means focusing on the thinking, institutions and projects powering the North and beyond. I will not aim to cover the weekly news, but building up the context and trends as concisely as possible. Sometimes it may be as simple as a fact or a chart.
I will be focused on economics, history and politics but range further afield in terms of topic and geography too, depending on what is going on and what is interesting. So the focus will be mostly Northern, but not exclusively.
For example, I’m interested in topics like what is going on with Northern Powerhouse Rail or the West Yorkshire tram but also the North East’s work on reducing child poverty, why there are so many nuclear industry professionals employed in Warrington or finding the time between work and family to complete the Wainwrights (66/214).
Overall, I’ll try to be optimistic. Though even the best optimism must also be tempered by realism, the power that comes with more control is one where we can make our own destiny.
So if you’ve made it to this point, please get in touch with any feedback or thoughts on the ideas, projects or trends that I should be looking into.
And finally, subscribe so you can follow this collective journey towards a Future North.
You can follow me on Bluesky, X and Linkedin too.
I’m defining the North here roughly as the traditional seven counties in their modern incarnations. This would mean the traditional counties of Cheshire, County Durham, Cumberland, Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Yorkshire - which roughly map onto the modern-ish counties of Cheshire, Country Durham, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and the four Yorkshires. Or put another way - what will soon be co-terminous with the 11 strategic authority areas of the North shown in the map. Would be great if the ONS could update their definitions of regions (ITL 1) to align with this reality.
Great work, optimism is so very important to making sure that North England can win!
Congrats on the DEC, it's a wonderful place to work.