‘Put more power into every postcode’ was the Prime Minister’s closing promise in the House of Commons on Tuesday 1 September, and it was plainly aimed at places long tired of waiting for Whitehall to notice them. In the official gov.uk text, he set out a place-first programme built around devolution, public control of essential services and a new power centre in Number 10 North. After six weeks travelling across the UK’s nations and regions, he told MPs he wants to take lessons learned outside Westminster and apply them across the country. For towns and city regions in the North, the big point was simple enough: this was a speech about who gets to make decisions in Middlesbrough, Liverpool, Manchester and beyond, not just who wins the argument in London.

He began with continuity on the biggest questions of state, paying tribute to his predecessor, the Member for Holborn and St Pancras, and making clear there will be no change in Britain’s support for Ukraine, saying the country’s defence starts there and will remain his first priority. He also referenced the Hillsborough families, saying the moment his predecessor delivered on the promise of a Hillsborough Law was one he would never forget. Closer to home, he offered condolences after the deaths of PC Matthew Blades and PC Tom Clough on the A66 and said the government would support a grieving Middlesbrough community while listening to calls for a serious discussion on policing investment and officer numbers. He also spoke of the devastation on the Nepal-China border, described the UK’s summer as likely the hottest on record and confirmed he will attend COP31 in Turkey in November.

He also signalled that he will keep measures he thinks are working. After visiting Dover in August, he said Border Force and HM Coastguard staff told him extra police numbers on French beaches were delivering results, and he reported that crossings over the summer were down by half on last year, leaving 2026 so far as the lowest year-to-date since 2021. With President Macron due in the UK on Wednesday 2 September for the opening of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, the Prime Minister said he would thank France for cooperation that has helped prevent more than 48,000 people from crossing. The message was straightforward: where there is evidence of progress, he plans to stick with it.

On the cost of living, he said his government’s first steps were meant to give households and firms ‘a little breathing space’. He pointed to a cut in VAT on electricity bills, lower business rates for pubs, social clubs and live music venues, and the return of the £2 cap on bus fares for the whole of 2027. He said the relief was funded by reprioritising within government, with fiscal responsibility remaining the bedrock of the approach. But he also used the speech to offer a hard-edged diagnosis of what has gone wrong. He argued that decades of centralisation, privatisation, deindustrialisation and austerity stripped communities of control, with Brexit adding to a long spell of low growth and stalled regeneration. Whether Westminster likes the wording or not, that argument will sound familiar in places where boarded-up high streets and thin-stretched councils have become part of daily life.

This is where Greater Manchester sat at the centre of his case. The Prime Minister said a decade of experience turning around a former industrial heartland and making it the fastest-growing city region in the country had given him a clear theory of growth, one he now wants to apply across the UK. In his telling, growth will not come from another London-first fix, but from handing more control to places so they can set their own priorities. Cornwall will now be invited to work with Number 10 North on a devolution deal, with or without an elected mayor, and he extended the same offer to every part of England that still lacks devolved power. MPs are to receive details from the First Secretary of State on how to engage, while Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will discuss what more local devolution could look like in their own nations at a special meeting of the National Economic Council next month.

The government says this amounts to the biggest redistribution of power this country has seen. Building on its July statement on English devolution, ministers plan to hand over powers long sought by mayors, including post-16 technical education, employment support and a measure of fiscal freedom. That includes the power to set an overnight visitor levy towards the end of the 2027-28 financial year. Number 10 North is meant to be the machine behind that shift. The Prime Minister described it as the single front door through which regions can get quicker, joined-up decisions from Whitehall, with civil service time and expertise pushed out of the centre and back into places. For councils cut to the bone over years, that part matters every bit as much as the headline promise.

He pointed to transport as proof that change can be felt quickly when local leaders have room to act. Number 10 North, he said, had backed West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker when he moved in August to prevent the collapse of bus services, and at the weekend Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram will see the first buses return to public control after four decades of deregulation. The speech linked that push on public control to a wider row about the basics that keep local economies moving. He said businesses are waiting too long for grid connections and being quoted punishing sums to bring dates forward, while a visit to a farm near Truro reinforced just how badly energy costs are hitting households and firms. He also warned that water shortages, sewage spills and weak reservoir capacity are damaging tourism, public health and confidence alike.

Later this year, ministers will publish a 10-year plan promising stronger public control over the essentials that shape daily life and business confidence. Alongside that, the Prime Minister said local leaders will be given more freedom to expand public housing stock, building on the first allocations already made through the Social and Affordable Homes programme. On jobs and skills, he wants mayors and local areas to shape technical pathways and work placements around the needs of their own economies, while more accessible community mental health services for young people will feed into the government’s response to the Milburn report this autumn. For towns still waiting on something more solid than another competitive funding round, this was one of the sharper sections of the speech.

Reindustrialisation sat squarely in the middle of the growth offer. The Prime Minister said ministers will back local industrial strategies, reviving an approach associated with Theresa May, and will support areas to take more public control over investment strategy by learning from Greater Manchester’s consolidated good growth fund. Business, academia and government, he argued, need to pull in the same direction if start-ups and scale-ups are to stay where they were founded. He paired that with a promise to build a more pro-business culture in every part of the UK, not just in the capital. For northern firms, that is the real test: whether this government can turn warm words about invention and regional pride into faster decisions, cheaper power, better transport and staff with the right training.

Beyond growth, the statement also set out immediate changes on justice and care. After reviewing prison capacity, the Prime Minister said those convicted of rape, grooming, serious child sex offences, manslaughter, death by dangerous driving or indecent assault will not see changes to their prison terms. He said extra places would instead come from deporting more foreign national offenders and from legislation aimed at addressing the long-running injustice of indefinite IPP sentences, while cross-party talks on social care have already begun. He framed all of this as ‘problem solving over point scoring’ and urged MPs to take a place-first rather than party-first approach, saying basic standards mean a country where no one sleeps rough and no community is blighted by an illegal waste tip. That will sound familiar to town halls across the North, which have heard plenty of speeches about rebalancing Britain over the years. What gives this one more weight is the claim behind it: if power, people and money are genuinely moved out of Whitehall, places that have spent 40 years on the wrong end of national policy might finally get a fairer crack of the whip.