Jim McMahon: 'Deep unease' at 'northern powerhouse' devolution deal

He was one of the architects of several multi-billion pound devolution deals to take power away from Whitehall and devolve it to Greater Manchester. But Jim McMahon, the new MP for Oldham West and Royton, is set to express his “deep unease” over the “northern powerhouse” project he has helped to promote.

McMahon, who signed the first of several deals with George Osborne in November 2014 while leader of Oldham council, will break ranks with his former Greater Manchester colleagues to suggest “devolution as it stands does not empower communities.”

In his maiden speech in parliament on Tuesday, McMahon will argue that the chancellor’s northern powerhouse project to join together the great cities of the north of England as a counter point to London is meaningless without a “genuine reform of the centre”. He will say the hallmark of devolution has been a “a treasury power-grab from other ministries but an unwillingness to give real freedoms and financial reform.”

He will criticise the lack of a “clear national framework for devolution”, the absence of which has led city regions and counties to compete against each other and cobble together their own deals.

“Without a clear national framework for devolution, it is for the Chancellor himself to pick and choose who he deals with and what is offered,” McMahon will say.

He will also argue that Oldham feels more like part of a “northern poorhouse” than a powerhouse because of the scale of the cuts in his own constituency, which have forced police stations, courts, youth centres, libraries and daycare centres to close.

The speech is likely to enrage Sir Richard Leese, the long-serving leader of Manchester council, and chair of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

When McMahon criticised the northern powerhouse project the day after his byelection win in December, when Jeremy Corbyn visited Oldham, he was immediately bombarded with angry phonecalls from Greater Manchester bigwigs demanding to know what he was playing at, the Guardian understands.

Osborne coined the phrase northern powerhouse in a speech in June 2014 at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, pledging to build it via investment in transport, science and innovation and arts and culture, combined with political devolution from Whitehall to town halls.

He argued the cities of the north are individually strong, but collectively not strong enough. “The whole is less than the sum of its parts,” said the chancellor, arguing that if the likes of Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and Hull joined together they could combined “take on the world.”