Calls to 'turbo charge the powers of local areas' were made this week after the Budget sparked fears an overly-centralised Whitehall-knows-best approach will continue. Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Budget last week was billed as delivering on the Conservative's 2019 manifesto commitment to invest more in northern constituencies, with the aim of closing the economic gap between the North and South. But writing for The MJ, director of policy and research at the Centre for Cities think-tank, Paul Swinney, suggested the devolution process seemed to have 'stalled' in England. He wrote: 'Too many of the chancellor's announcements - freeports, town deals, other centrally-controlled funding pots - signal that the Government plans to maintain the overly-centralised Whitehall-knows-best way of running the country that has come under so much criticism during the pandemic' Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham suggested his stand-off with Downing Street over COVID-19 restrictions last year may have dented the Government's ambitions for devolution, which are expected to be detailed in a delayed White Paper later this year.
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