The people of North Lanarkshire, Fife and the Highlands know their own communities best - and that is the blunt case the UK Government wants to land as Prime Minister Andy Burnham makes a fresh offer to Scotland's First Minister. He wants both governments to work together to push power down past Westminster and Holyrood, and into the hands of Scotland's regions and cities. Speaking after meeting young people in Lanarkshire, Burnham is pitching devolution as more than a constitutional slogan. The argument is one plenty across the North will recognise straight away: if decisions stay parked in one capital, places further out are still left waiting for their turn.

According to the UK Government's account of the speech, Burnham will say the Scottish Government remains one of the most centralised devolved administrations in Europe. Westminster handed major powers to Holyrood 27 years ago, but the Prime Minister's point is that devolution was never meant to end there. That matters in towns and city-regions that often feel talked about rather than listened to. Whether it is North Lanarkshire, Fife or the Highlands, the complaint is familiar enough: people closest to the work, the transport problems and the jobs market do not get enough say over the decisions that shape them.

Burnham is tying that case to jobs and reindustrialisation. In the UK Government's telling, the next chapter of Scottish devolution should put more decision-making with regions and cities so they can back local industry, train workers for the jobs on their own doorstep and make more of the strengths they already have. For The Northern Ledger's readers, there is nothing airy about that. Northern England has spent years making the same point: growth comes quicker when places are trusted to plan transport, skills, housing and industry around their own economies rather than wait for a one-size-fits-all answer from the centre.

As part of the offer, Burnham is asking the Scottish Government to work with No10 North and the Scotland Office on a new model of regional empowerment for Scotland. The pitch is not for a Westminster grab dressed up as reform; it is a call for both governments to loosen their hold and trust communities with their own identity, ambition and economic muscle. In his words, the aim is to 'spread opportunities to communities across Scotland's regions and cities'. He is presenting it as an open invitation rather than a diktat, saying the next phase of devolution should be judged by what it does for working communities, not by who gets the best line at First Minister's Questions.

Douglas Alexander, the Scottish Secretary, sharpened the political point. He said power 'was never supposed to stop at the doors of the Scottish Parliament' and argued that local knowledge matters more than ministerial distance, whether the minister sits in London or Edinburgh. That line will ring true well beyond Scotland. Metro mayors, council leaders and business groups across the North have said much the same for years: people on the ground usually spot the gaps in transport, skills and investment long before Whitehall does. Burnham is now trying to apply that same thinking inside devolved Scotland too.

The offer, though, comes with a real test for Holyrood. It is one thing to demand powers from Westminster; it is another to pass some of that authority onwards to city-regions, councils and local partnerships. That is often where devolution arguments tighten up, because every parliament likes the language of local control until local control asks for a bigger say. So this is not just warm talk about co-operation. It is a direct challenge to the Scottish Government to show whether it believes power should keep moving outward, even when that means Edinburgh giving up some of its own grip.

For readers outside the London bubble, that is the part worth watching. If Burnham gets movement from Holyrood, Scotland could become the next test of whether devolution in Britain still has real bite beyond the headline rows and party point-scoring. The broad message from the UK Government is plain enough: strong regions are not a side issue, they are how places build decent work and a fairer future. In Lanarkshire, Burnham is trying to make that case in Scottish terms. Across the North, plenty will think it is a debate long overdue.