No 10 North opened in Manchester on 23 July. Since then, MPs have repeatedly asked what it costs to set up, run, staff and travel to the Prime Minister’s new office, and the Cabinet Office has not given a total for any of them.
Its latest answer came on 15 October, after the Conservative MP Mike Wood asked how much had been spent on hotels for No 10 North staff, ministers and special advisers. “As staff have been surged from a number of departments, accommodation cost information is not centrally collated,” replied Sally Jameson, a Cabinet Office minister. “Costs are being met within existing departmental budgets.”
It was the second time the hotel question had gone unanswered. On 28 August, the Conservative MP Gregory Stafford tabled a series of questions about No 10 North, among them:
the estimated annual hotel costs for ministers and civil servants travelling to Manchester;
spending to date on rail, air, taxis, hotels and subsistence;
the cost so far of establishing the office, broken down into refurbishment and fit out, IT and communications, security, furniture and equipment, staffing and recruitment, travel and accommodation, and other costs;
the annual cost of travel between London and Manchester;
the five year cost, including capital spending, staffing, travel, accommodation, security and premises;
the expected savings;
the value for money criteria;
whether a full business case had been prepared.
Mark Ferguson, a Cabinet Office minister, answered them on 8 September without giving any figures, or saying whether a business case existed. His answers said No 10 North was “central to the Prime Minister’s commitment to get good growth in every postcode”, that its establishment cost “is covered by existing departmental budgets”, that staffing costs appear in the Cabinet Office organogram, and that the Prime Minister splits his time between Downing Street and Manchester. Dr Luke Evans, Conservative MP for Hinckley and Bosworth, asked for the ongoing operational and security costs and got the same answer. When Evans then asked which budget had paid for refurbishing Heron House, Ferguson replied on 7 October that “No refurbishment of Heron House was undertaken”, and said establishment costs would be accounted for in the Cabinet Office’s annual report and accounts.
The only itemised costs on record came out under the Freedom of Information Act rather than through answers to Parliament. They were:
£954.16 to move 24 meeting chairs from London;
£978.87 to move a replica No 10 door;
£17.20 for five sign frames;
£10,527.20 for physically branding the office;
£6,082.38 for event equipment, lighting and flag poles;
£1,768.43 for crockery;
£971.86 of sundries bought from Amazon;
£8,799 for enabling works;
£18,718.23 for IT and communications infrastructure.
The logo was designed by an existing team at no extra cost. The response also said the office space was provided at no cost, and that “Further information will be published in the Cabinet Office Annual Reports and Accounts in due course.” The items total £48,817.33. They do not include staffing, security, hotels, rail travel, subsistence or the cost of running the office.
At Cabinet Office questions on 10 September, the Conservative MP John Lamont cited the branding, crockery and replica door costs. He asked whether the government would publish No 10 North’s annual running costs, including staffing, travel and security. Dan Tomlinson, Parliamentary Secretary at the Cabinet Office, said the costs were covered by existing Cabinet Office budgets and would be published “in the usual way, along with the Cabinet Office accounts.” Wood said the minister either did not know or would not say what No 10 North would cost. He asked for the total budget, staff numbers and attendance figures, and Tomlinson again pointed to the Cabinet Office accounts.
Those accounts cannot yet answer the question. The Cabinet Office’s 2025/26 annual report and accounts were laid before Parliament on 14 September 2026 and cover the year to 31 March, before No 10 North existed. The first accounts that could include its costs are those for 2026/27. Even those may not give the figure MPs asked for. Jameson’s answer says staff have been sent from “a number of departments”, and a hotel bill paid by another department for its own employee is that department’s spending, not the Cabinet Office’s. The Cabinet Office has not said its 2026/27 accounts will show a separate No 10 North total that includes costs paid by other departments.
The travel rules draw the same line. Wood asked whether hotels, train fares and subsistence would be paid for staff commuting from London and the South East. Jameson said on 29 September that the Cabinet Office pays for “official business travel” but that “Ordinary commuting costs are not covered.” The policy she described covers Cabinet Office civil servants, special advisers and non executive board and committee members. Her answer did not mention ministers.
No 10 North is part of the Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet, created in July. Burnham proposed it in a speech in Manchester on 29 June, after Sir Keir Starmer announced he would resign. On 23 July, as Prime Minister, he chaired the National Economic Council there. The office has taken on local economic growth and devolution functions from the Treasury and the housing department, and operates from Heron House. The Commons Library records reports of about 50 civil servants working there by late August, a number expected to rise to as many as 150, and notes that reports naming Sam Lister as its lead civil servant have not been officially confirmed.
Burnham proposed No 10 North and, as Prime Minister, is politically responsible for it. The Commons Library cites BBC reporting that Louise Haigh, First Secretary of State and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, oversees it. The Cabinet Office’s 2025/26 accounts name Catherine Little, Permanent Secretary, as the department’s Principal Accounting Officer, formally responsible for the regularity and value for money of Cabinet Office spending. Hotel costs paid by other departments fall to those departments’ own Accounting Officers, and the Cabinet Office has not said which departments they are or how much each has spent.
At the opening, Burnham argued that requiring “everybody to troop down to London every time there’s a meeting” carries costs of its own, and that the country needed a northern centre to balance the concentration of power in London. No minister has published an estimate of those savings. When Stafford asked what they would be, the answer gave none.