Andy Burnham’s speech signals a fundamental shift in how Britain thinks about growth

At the end of June, Andy Burnham delivered one of the most important speeches we’ve heard in recent years about Britain’s economy, ahead of becoming Prime Minister.

Whether you agreed with every proposal he put forward is almost beside the point – what struck me was the broader argument sitting underneath it. His speech reflected a growing recognition that Britain’s economic future will increasingly be determined not by what happens in Westminster alone, but by the strength of its regions.

That represents a significant shift in thinking.

For decades, regional growth has often been framed as something desirable. Successive governments have talked about rebalancing the economy, reducing regional inequalities and attracting investment outside London. Yet too often those ambitions have remained secondary to a model in which economic policy is designed nationally and delivered locally.

Burnham’s speech challenged that assumption. Instead, it argued that the regions themselves must become the engines of national prosperity.

The world Britain is competing in today looks very different to the one it faced twenty or thirty years ago. Global competition is increasingly shaped by energy security, advanced manufacturing, resilient supply chains, clean technologies and strategic infrastructure. Countries that succeed will be those capable of bringing these pieces together quickly and effectively.

That isn’t simply a challenge for central government – it is a challenge for places.

The cities and regions that can align investment, infrastructure, skills, planning and industry will be the places that attract businesses, create jobs and drive productivity over the coming decades.

That is why I believe the conversation has changed.

Increasingly, this is no longer about regional policy – it is about national economic policy.

One point I made when opening Future Cities & Transport UK at the beginning of July was that I think we’ve accidentally undersold what the clean industrial transition actually represents. We often describe it as an environmental agenda, focusing on emissions, renewable energy and net zero targets. Those objectives are, of course, essential, but they are only part of the story.

The clean industrial transition is also Britain’s biggest economic development opportunity for a generation.

It gives us the chance to regenerate post-industrial towns and cities, attract private investment, create highly skilled employment and rebuild the productive economy in places that have spent decades adapting to industrial decline.

Growing up in Barnsley, I saw first-hand what happens when industries disappear. Communities don’t simply lose jobs; they lose confidence, opportunity and, over time, economic resilience. The challenge now is not to recreate the industries of the past, but to build the industries of the future in the very places that helped build Britain’s economy in the first place.

That is why I found Burnham’s speech so encouraging. It recognised that regional growth isn’t about asking for a bigger share of the national economy. It’s about creating a larger national economy by enabling every region to play to its strengths.

Of course, recognising the opportunity is only the first step – the bigger challenge is delivery.

Over the last 3 years, I’ve had the opportunity to meet with combined authorities, investors, developers, infrastructure providers, manufacturers and government departments across the UK. One thing has become consistently clear: there is no shortage of ambition. Every region has a vision. Businesses want to invest. Investors are actively looking for opportunities.

What often slows progress isn’t ambition, it’s fragmentation.

Infrastructure, transport, housing, energy, investment and skills are too often treated as separate conversations, led by different organisations with different priorities and different timescales. Yet in reality they are deeply interconnected. A region cannot unlock industrial growth without energy infrastructure. Investment cannot flow without credible projects. New housing depends on transport, utilities and planning. Skills cannot be developed without employers helping shape future demand.

None of these challenges can be solved in isolation.

That is why collaboration is becoming one of Britain’s greatest competitive advantages. The regions that succeed will not necessarily be those with the biggest budgets or the largest populations. They will be the ones that are best at bringing together government, industry, investors, academia and communities behind a shared vision for growth.

If Burnham’s speech is remembered for anything, I suspect it will be because it captured this moment of transition. It recognised that the UK’s next chapter of economic growth is likely to be place-led, built on regional strengths and delivered through partnership rather than siloed decision-making.

That conversation doesn’t begin and end with one speech.

It now needs to continue through practical collaboration between the organisations responsible for delivering that future.

That is exactly why, this October, ReGeneration Earth will bring together leaders from government, combined authorities, investors, infrastructure, industry and academia from across the UK. Not to revisit the debate about whether regions matter, but to focus on the far more important question: how do we work together to turn this vision into reality?

Because if Britain’s next chapter is genuinely going to be written by its regions, those regions need somewhere to come together to shape it.