A row has erupted over Andy Burnham’s bid to return to Parliament and the cost of a potential by-election for his job as Greater Manchester mayor.
Mr Burnham wants to stand as Labour’s candidate in Makerfield after former MP Josh Simons stepped down last week. The outgoing MP said his departure was to make way for Andy Burnham to find a route back to Westminster – a move thought by some to be the first step in a journey towards Number 10.
It comes as Prime Minister Keir Starmer is facing growing pressure to resign after Labour’s hammering in the local elections on May 7.
But Labour has come under fire over the cost of a potential by-election for the job of Greater Manchester mayor should Andy Burnham be elected to Parliament.
The cost of a mayoral by-election has been reported to be around ‘£5m’ to the public purse.
As Rob Ford – Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester – pointed out last week, the scale of a Greater Manchester mayoral by-election would be enormous, with nearly three million people living in the region.
“It would be by a very large margin the biggest by-election that Britain has ever had, there are EU member states that are smaller than the electorate in Greater Manchester,” Professor Ford told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) said it wouldn’t speculate on the prospect of a future mayoral by-election or the cost, but they did confirm that the last time Andy Burnham was re-elected in 2024, a sum of £4,719,754 was needed to pay the bill.
Labour critics in Greater Manchester have attacked the party over the cost of any potential mayoral by-election.
Andy Burnham’s office and the Labour Party were approached for comment.
Cheadle MP Tom Morrison, a Lib Dem, said: “It is incredible that the Labour Government is potentially plunging us into a by-election in Greater Manchester that will cost the taxpayer £5m, all because there is no one suitable to be Prime Minister on their benches already.”
Mr Morrison pointed out that Stepping Hill Hospital in Stockport has a repair backlog which could cost ‘ £134m’ to plug.
The Cheadle MP added: “Last year the ceiling in the maternity ward fell on a mother giving birth, and every few months raw sewage floods the wards in the specialist liver unit.
“They [Labour] should get a grip, sort their internal issues out, and use the money going on this by-election to better use like fixing our hospital.”
Councillor John Leech, leader of the opposition Lib Dem group at Manchester council, said: “While Mancunians struggle to get by in the cost of living crisis, spending £5M of taxpayer money to pay for a parliamentary and mayoral by-election due to Labour incompetence is ludicrous.
“This is Labours’ own doing. They should foot the bill. Not the taxpayer.”
Andy Burnham gave a pitch to become Labour’s candidate for Makerfield MP at the Great North Investment Summit in Leeds today, saying that the UK had been on the ‘wrong path for most of the last 40 years’.
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