Jeremy Hunt

And that is all very well, but what other countries have done is actually allow their regions to sort out their own problems by giving elected mayors the real power to sort out planning, to issue bonds, to raise taxes.

And I think our...

Our devolution is a bit of a fraud in England because what we have is elected mayors like Andy Burnham or Andy Street or Ben Houchen who have political legitimacy but not the agency to solve their problems.

Now, I'll give you an example.

Manchester, a bit topical now with Andy Burnham, right?

Yeah, yeah.

You compare what's happened in Manchester to what's happened in Bilbao in Spain or Denver in the United States.

In the 1980s, all three cities had similar income per head.

They were all deeply depressed by deindustrialization.

And over the last 40 years...

Bilbao and Denver have basically caught up with the richest cities in their country, Madrid and New York.

Manchester still is on an income of about half London's income.

And Manchester is actually the area that's had the most devolution of power.

But can Andy Burnham raise $3 billion, which is what the mayor of Denver did to build Denver International Airport?

No, he can't.

Well, I certainly would have done it if I'd stayed as Chancellor.

Genuinely?

Genuinely.

I said it was probably the single biggest reform.

It's a kind of big structure.