Andy Burnham risks creating a “two-tier” country with plans to hand a share of income tax to mayoralties in England, MPs and economists have warned.
The Prime Minister is expected to unveil plans next week to hand England’s 14 regional and metro mayors a share of income tax revenue to spend on local growth and infrastructure, marking a shift away from Treasury control of local funding.
But around half of England’s population currently lives outside an area with an elected mayor, and there has been no confirmation of whether non-mayoral areas will get an equivalent route to the new funding.
Cornwall is one part of the country that has long rejected the notion of a devolved mayoralty.
Perran Moon, the Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth – the most southerly constituency in the country – warned that giving mayoralties control over income tax could force areas without the model to adopt it.
