ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO SKY NEWS, SUNDAY WITH NIALL PATERSON

NIALL PATERSON: First the Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham. Mr Burnham, I think we’ve got you, a very good morning.

ANDY BURNHAM: Good morning.

NP: Clearly Brexit remains the most divisive issue in British politics. There appears to be a role for the First Minister of Scotland, the First Minister of Wales in the talks but no role for yourself.

ANDY BURNHAM: I know. There’s a committee with the Cayman Islands on it, the British Virgin Islands but no permanent seat for the English regions, for Greater Manchester and quite frankly, Niall, that’s not good enough. I’m worried that we’ll get the same old story, a London-centric approach to Brexit where the government protects the City of London above other industries and that’s our fear and to guard against that we need a seat at the table.

NP: You have written it the Sunday Times and you essentially make the point that Brexit happened because Westminster took its eye off the ball, Westminster has failed the north of England. Just explain that in a bit more detail.

ANDY BURNHAM: It’s more than its eye off the ball, Niall, it’s over decades. Westminster in my view has failed the north of England, it’s given us a second class transport system, a housing and homelessness crisis, an education system that obsesses on the university route and neglects those who want technical skills and in the past it focused on service industries and sold manufacturing down the river. So on many issues you can see how Westminster hasn’t come up with the solutions that the north of England needs and now with Brexit looming, finding solutions to those issues has become urgent and that’s why I’m making this call today on the Chancellor to say now is the time to go further, faster, deeper with devolution. Give people real control, hand back power to the regions and that’s the best way to rise to the challenge of Brexit.

NP: But what if some of those problems thrown up by Brexit cannot be solved, the circle cannot be squared. Unlike some of your Labour party colleagues, you have dismissed out of hand the idea of a second referendum, why is that?

ANDY BURNHAM: Look, people voted and you’ve got to respect the decision, you’ve got to get on with the job now of making it work and that’s what people want me to do as Mayor of Greater Manchester and what we need the ability to do now is write our own future, come up with our own way of doing things. Manchester, Greater Manchester, famously likes to do things differently. Well this is our chance. We have some power under the devolution deal but I believe the government needs to go further critically on this issue of skills. I can’t meet businesses in Greater Manchester now without them saying to me, you know, let’s get on with this challenge, it’s now urgent because of the need to bring through people to fill potential gaps in the workplace and yet we have the Department for Education delaying aspects of our devolution deal and saying, oh no, we’re not going to give you power over adult skills for another year. That isn’t good enough, really not good enough and that’s not a coherent response to the challenges of Brexit. Westminster to me, Niall, having left it looks increasingly dysfunctional. I would say it created the conditions for Brexit by ignoring large parts of the country and not giving them the …

NP: Ah, well we appear to have lost Andy Burnham there, the Mayor of Greater Manchester. We are just going to try and see if we can get back through to him there but clearly he is a man who feels that greater devolution is necessary, that more powers should be transferred to the regions as quickly as possible. He also feels there are a number of policy areas … I think we can try and re-establish that link now. You are there, excellent, Mr Burnham, thank you for returning to the show. I just wanted to speak about a …

ANDY BURNHAM: I was in my flow there, Niall, I was going for there but there you go.

NP: Honestly we didn’t hit the off switch deliberately, I promise you! Let’s talk about a couple of things that we might want to see action on in terms of the budget that are pertinent to Greater Manchester: homelessness is an issue that you’ve been struggling to get to grips with, what role would increased funding from central government play?

ANDY BURNHAM: Well we have had some funding but the point is this crisis is urgent, Niall. We have got record numbers of people huddled in the doorways of Greater Manchester and let’s focus on a specific issue here, universal credit. I have been very clear over recent weeks that if the government press ahead with their plans for universal credit and make people wait weeks on end to get their money, they are going to make this problem a whole lot worse. It is essential that the budget drastically reduces that time period people have to wait for money.

NP: I just wondered if we could dwell a moment on healthcare and of course during your time in Westminster you were heavily involved in the health service. It does seem that we are essentially hamstrung by two things, money or the lack thereof, and the political will to actually have an honest adult discussion about where the limits of the health service should be. Do you agree with the letter that was written, signatories including a number of your colleagues in the Labour party, that the NHS needs to be taken out of party politics?

ANDY BURNHAM: Sort of but I feel frustration here Niall because you remember I put forward a plan some years ago for the reform of social care funding and it frustrates me to hear MPs saying let’s have another convention. Somebody just need to grasp the nettle, put a plan forward, have a debate about the plan and then try and build consensus. It’s although everyone is always fearful of upsetting people and saying what should be done. I’ve long believed that we need an NHS for the whole person that covers their physical, mental and social needs. You can’t rise to the challenge of an ageing society saying that the NHS will deal with your medical care over here and councils with your social care over there, it doesn’t work. It leaves people telling the same story to everyone who comes through the door. I believe we need one system for the whole person, that means funding social care on NHS terms and that is the solution that needs to be found and it’s urgent because as we are seeing, our hospitals are full, we can’t carry on in this way and the government needs to provide better answers. We have bid from Greater Manchester for a pilot for the reform of NHS funding and we believe we are moving more quickly towards a fully integrated system here than anywhere else and our appeal to the government is, let us show that it can work here so that then we can move the NHS in that direction everywhere else.

NP: Let’s turn our attention shall we to internal Labour party politics. You may have escaped Westminster to head all the way to lovely Manchester but I’m afraid that’s not far enough. You supported Anas Sawar in his candidacy to be the next leader of the Scottish Labour party, Richard Leonard instead took the post. He’s got a job in front of him doesn’t he?

ANDY BURNHAM: Of course, we all do because I’ve never known the national mood to be as edgy and as gloomy as it is right now to be honest and I think everywhere people are looking at politics and thinking this really isn’t working. So the obligation is on all of us, those who are in positions in a devolved context or those at the national level, Labour needs to put forward a genuine alternative that can work nationally, regionally and locally and that’s what we’re doing, and hold the government to account that looks in increasing disarray. Just one issue I wanted to raise, Niall, very quickly, you know we were promised after the Manchester attack that we’d get the costs of that attack, the extra costs, in full and now the Prime Minister is saying, oh we’ll give you the majority. It’s things like that that people say, hang on, what’s going on here, where’s the basic decency and standards in politics at the moment. People just feel they can say things and walk away from them and it’s not right and we need to see some integrity back in politics and things done the right way. I hope the budget this week will sort of lift us out of this rut that we seem to be in at the moment and have a budget that’s fair to everywhere and, as I said at the beginning, that really goes further, faster, deeper with devolution.

NP: But the changes that you really want to see, let’s be honest about it, what you really need is the Labour party in government and despite the fact that pro-Corbyn candidates appear to be cleaning up internally with the Labour party, if you look at the polling and Labour’s lead still seems to be within the margin of error despite an admittedly weak Prime Minister, a Cabinet at war with itself, I mean have we reached peak Corbyn?

ANDY BURNHAM: I don’t think so, I think what you’ve seen is Labour gaining ground over the last few years. I lost to Jeremy and I have to say look at what he’s done in terms of inspiring people, particularly a new generation of voters. The party nationally are making commitments that are music to my ears, they are saying that they will pay for Cross Rail for the north, that rail system that the north of England desperately needs …

NP: But we still don’t know if they would win if an election were to be called tomorrow is my point.

ANDY BURNHAM: I think what you’ve seen is those polls change haven’t you? They were in a very different position in the early part of this year and look at them now, Labour is ahead. Of course they have got to build on that and they’ve got to bring forward policies that are truly credible. I have said myself that I don’t think it’s right in the context of education to make only promises to university students, Labour needs a much stronger story for young people who want technical qualifications and that’s the kind of test that I’m setting them but overall the progress is really good and I think increasingly people are saying we can’t carry on as we are.

NP: Andy Burnham, many thanks for being with us.