Yet again, Burnham reveals his ignorance of Scotland

When Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham claimed that Holyrood behaves like Westminster by “centralising” power away from local authorities, he wasn’t just missing the mark … again … he was rewriting history.

For a Labour figure to lecture Scotland on local empowerment is the height of ironic hypocrisy. The truth is that on a number of occasions when the SNP has handed real, discretionary powers to Scotland’s local councils, Scottish Labour tried to stand in the way.

Their political memory is shorter than a Peter Mandelson comeback. While Labour politicians routinely stand up to demand more local government autonomy, their actual voting record tells a completely different story.

They don’t want local councils to have power; they want to weaponise local government as a political tool while denying them the exact tools they need to govern.

The reality of Labour’s approach to local government is that those shouting the loudest for local devolution are the exact same people who have opposed councils implementing the powers they already have.

Take the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019 – a landmark piece of legislation designed to give local authorities unprecedented control over their local infrastructure. How did Labour respond?

Like so many times over the past two decades, they hopped into the four-poster bed with the Tories to vote against it.

By opposing this Act, Scottish Labour actively voted against giving councils the right to:

• Set up and run their own municipal bus companies.

• Legally re-regulate and franchise local transport networks to put passengers before profits.

• Apply the local discretion to designate specific exemption zones on a national ban on pavement parking.

• Implement a workplace parking levy to fund local climate and transport initiatives – an optional power Edinburgh Labour actually campaigned for!

Andy Burnham’s comments are particularly rich given his own time in Westminster.

Between 1997 and 2010 – the very time Burnham served in government – New Labour eroded local authority.

The trend saw the Westminster government pressurise English councils into ring-fenced funding and top-down micro-management. A situation academics described as “control feakery“.

During that same era, the 1999-2007  Labour-LibDem Scottish Executive brought that exact same controlling, Westminster-style culture to Scotland.

They restricted Scottish councils with strict ring-fencing, dictating exactly how local money had to be spent.

It was the SNP that broke those chains in 2007 with the historic Concordat with COSLA.

This agreement drastically reduced central government ring-fencing, finally trusting local authorities to allocate their budgets based on the needs of their own communities.

Tellingly, despite the Concordat being signed alongside a Labour COSLA President, Scottish Labour continually attacked it in the Holyrood chamber.

They simply could not stomach the idea of letting go of central control.

If anyone thinks Labour has changed, they only need to look at their record across the border today.

Since taking office at Westminster, the current Labour administration has shown the same contempt for local democracy.

Local government experts and organisations like the County Councils Network have raised the alarm that Labour’s aggressive new planning rules completely override local voices, stripping communities of their say and leaving rural areas highly vulnerable to speculative development.

Furthermore, the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) highlighted a deeply concerning trend where the Labour government has repeatedly postponed or delayed local elections, interfering directly with local democratic mandates.

The contrast could not be clearer. While Labour uses the term “devolution” as an empty slogan, the SNP has consistently delivered the legislative framework to make local empowerment a reality.

Whether it is transport, local taxation, or economic development, the SNP believes that local decisions should be made by local people.

The next time a Labour politician tries to lecture Scotland on local powers, remind them of their record. They don’t want to empower local councils; they want to control them.

Only the SNP can be trusted to defend and expand the powers of Scotland’s communities.