Andy Burnham left Greater Manchester £1.34 billion in the red – the highest debt of any combined authority in England, analysis shows. The Telegraph has the story.
The former mayor’s outstanding borrowing totalled £1.34 billion by the end of the last financial year, up from £964 million before he took office in 2017, according to government figures.
Adjusted for population, Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA)’s debt per resident was £462, the second highest of all combined authorities.
Sir James Cleverly, the Shadow Housing Minister, said Burnham had left Manchester in a “mountain of debt” even as taxpayers faced higher bills.
He said: “In his time as mayor, the general mayoral council tax precept rose by a staggering 127%. With the Prime Minister-in-waiting promising more and more spending, the national debt is set to hit new heights.”
Analysts warned that more bills would be “pushed on to taxpayers” if Burnham took “the same big-spending instincts” into Downing Street. It came after a report on Monday warned taxes could rise by £38 billion under his premiership.
Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) data show that outstanding borrowing rose by 65% in just two years under Burnham to a peak of £1.56 billion in 2018-19.
GMCA’s debt level was nearly two and a half times higher than the West Midlands combined authority, which has racked up a £544 million deficit.
Burnham’s outstanding borrowing costs have been primarily associated with capital investment projects, such as the rollout of the flagship Bee Network – Greater Manchester’s integrated transport system – as well as housing and regeneration developments. Accounts also showed that under his transport reforms, the former mayor spent £550,000 painting 93 buses yellow.
GMCA’s deficit on the Bee Network alone reached a net £227 million per year under Burnham, which included income from fares paid by passengers, according to CPT, a transport industry body.
It reported that the expenditure had been rising since the network’s inception in 2023, warning that it served as a “reminder that bus franchising is, in general, expensive”.
Spending on management consultants also more than tripled during Burnham’s time in office, from £8.7 million in 2019 to £26.9 million in 2025, according to figures from the data analytics firm Tussell.
Worth reading in full.
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There is nothing easier than spending other people’s money. A true socialist regards that as creating wealth. They really are a lost cause.
Socialist mission accomplished from his point of view?
I’ve seen it in business. New trendy managers are parachuted in, promising big changes. After a lot of arm waving it appears that money has been spent freely but real problems are still unresolved. But the new trendy manager has already left for a new job, without his failures dogging him.
“Sir James Cleverly, the Shadow Housing Minister, said Burnham had left Manchester in a “mountain of debt” even as taxpayers faced higher bills. ”
Funny, every graph I can find that shows UK debt to GDP over time seems to show it rising steadily through the years of “Conservative” government we had before Starmer.
‘Cleverly’.
Yeah, right.
There hasn’t been a Conservative Government since 1992.
Peter Hitchens makes a very compelling argument that we’ve never really had a conservative government, and that Thatcher’s policies were more socialist than right-wing. Definitely worth listening to.
I agree. The Conservatives post-1945 accepted the quasi-Communist welfare-state as the norm and did nothing to reverse it. They were passive. Thatcher reversed the State-ownership of most industry but not all. and did nothing to dismantle the Socialist welfare-state. And Hitchins is correct she increased the size of the State, and increased Government intervention in the economy.
However since her departure, the Conservatives ceased to be passive Socialists in the sense if just mostly accepting the status-quo as the norm, to actively pursuing Socialist ideology of elevation of State over the individual, central economic planning control – a fine example of which is Net Zero.
And perhaps going further back before the war, when Labour became a more dominant political force, replacing the Liberals as the main Opposition Party in the 1920s and forming a short-lived Government, and pulling Conservatives over towards the Left.
It is an indisputable fact that we as a country are in the proverbial, we are borrowing more than we produce, we have the highest tax burden since ww2, we spend far too much on Welfare, NGO’S , Foreign aid, Migoes etc.
Both the Conservatives and Labour since the latter Blair years have been profligate, the whipped cream on the cake is the current Labour government.
Both Parties have created this mess, we the British people are in a way to blame too as we let them and some will still vote for them, like the definition of Insanity, they keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome.
Time to clean out the stables, put Reform in, let them have a go, they really couldn’t be any worse.
Sadly true
“ they really couldn’t be any worse.” Probably not but in any case they deserve a chance
The British people created this mess when they voted for a Socialist economy, welfare-state, in 1945 and ever since, believing everyone is entitled to live at each other’s expense and to hell with the cost, let the rich pay.
They ignored all the warnings: inflation, increasing debt, increased taxation, State intervention in the economy, State pension financing in trouble since 1958, expanding welfare-state… just lots of free stuff for me, me, me.
Those of us old enough can see the present economic situation is a re-run of the 1960s/70s – the IMF were called in in 1976 because debt was so high, the economy such a wreck lenders wouldn’t lend except at exorbitant rates. Our situation now is compounded by having an additional population of 12 million consuming more than they produce and creating social changes. And of course the Net Zero lunacy.
Had any Party stood on a manifesto of abolishing the welfare-state, NHS, returning the public services to the private and voluntary sector do you think they would have won?