Manchester Airport boss urges Burnham to curb tax instincts and back private enterprise

Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, has been told that Labour must break what one senior airport executive described as an “addiction to taxes” if Britain is to revive a flagging economy and attract the investment needed to compete globally.

Ken O’Toole, chief executive of Manchester Airport, said the public and private sectors had worked effectively together to help secure new routes to China and India, in a pointed defence of partnership at a time when many business leaders fear Labour is drifting towards a more interventionist and tax-heavy approach. His remarks were read by many in the region as a direct challenge to Burnham, who has built much of his political profile on a blend of localist rhetoric, calls for greater devolution, and a willingness to push for higher spending powers.

O’Toole’s intervention reflects a wider anxiety in business circles that the economic debate in Britain is being narrowed by arguments over taxes, unions and state control. In the view of airport and transport leaders, the challenge is not merely fiscal but structural: to persuade global companies, airlines and investors that the UK remains a place where private capital is welcomed, rewarded and allowed to operate with confidence.

Manchester Airport has become one of the clearest examples of the dividends that can follow from that approach. The airport has long depended on collaboration with government and local authorities, but its leadership argues that such cooperation only works when the state does not crowd out commercial judgement. The securing of routes to China and India, both strategically important markets for trade, tourism and inward investment, has been held up as evidence that public sector involvement can support, rather than supplant, business ambition.

That argument has added force because the airport sits at the centre of a broader regional economic story. Manchester and the wider North West have spent years trying to position themselves as an alternative growth engine to the South East, with transport connectivity, international links and housing supply all central to that effort. For O’Toole, the lesson is that public policy should be judged by whether it enables such growth, not by whether it satisfies ideological instincts about redistribution or state expansion.

The criticism of Burnham is therefore as much symbolic as personal. He has become one of Labour’s most visible and media-savvy figures, a mayor who has often styled himself as a champion of the North and a critic of Westminster centralism. But business figures increasingly fear that his approach, and Labour’s wider economic rhetoric, risks substituting political drama for practical confidence. They are especially wary of policies that appear hostile to wealth creation, sceptical of enterprise, or overly reliant on punitive taxation as a way of signalling fairness.

What makes O’Toole’s remarks significant is not simply that they come from a transport executive, but that they arrive at a moment when Labour is under pressure to convince voters and markets that it can be trusted with economic management. The party’s challenge is to reconcile its traditional instincts on taxation and public spending with the need to reassure investors that Britain will not become a country in which success is routinely penalised. That tension is particularly acute in the regions Labour hopes to turn into showcases for its industrial strategy.

Airport chiefs are acutely sensitive to the consequences of policy drift. Air links are not ornamental. They are commercial infrastructure, tied to export prospects, inward tourism, higher education, advanced manufacturing and services. Routes to China and India matter because they connect regional economies to the fastest-growing parts of the world, and because they can determine whether a city such as Manchester is seen internationally as a serious business destination. To secure those links requires not only marketing and airport capacity, but also political stability and an atmosphere in which private operators feel supported rather than constrained.

That is why O’Toole’s message will resonate beyond the airport sector. He is effectively arguing that Britain cannot tax its way to prosperity, and that the instinct to solve every economic or social problem through the state is counterproductive. The private sector, he suggests, is not an adversary to be kept at arm’s length but the principal engine through which growth, jobs and international links are created. If Labour is serious about boosting productivity and expanding opportunity, it must make that engine more powerful, not more encumbered.

Burnham’s critics would say he has shown an increasing appetite for fiscal populism, particularly in his calls for greater borrowing flexibility and his willingness to align himself with groups that can deliver political pressure. His supporters, by contrast, see him as a pragmatist who understands the importance of public investment and regional empowerment. Yet the friction between these interpretations is now becoming more pronounced, especially as business leaders warn that policy proposals framed as pro-worker or pro-region may in practice deter the very investment those areas require.

The airport boss’s intervention also speaks to a broader debate about the future of regional devolution. Greater Manchester has often been presented as a model for local power, with the city region granted more responsibilities than many other parts of the country. But devolution only works, according to business advocates, when it is accompanied by a serious appreciation of how markets function. That means recognising that growth depends on competition, capital formation and confidence as much as on political control.

In that context, the relationship between public and private sectors is not a matter of ideology but of practical necessity. Airports, rail links, roads and housing developments all require public policy to clear the path, but they are rarely built successfully by governments alone. The challenge for politicians such as Burnham is to avoid treating private enterprise as either morally suspect or politically expendable. For business leaders such as O’Toole, this is more than an abstract concern. It affects whether firms choose to expand, where airlines choose to fly, and whether global investors view Britain as a market worth backing.

Manchester Airport’s own position underlines the stakes. It is one of Britain’s principal international gateways outside London, and its fortunes are closely tied to the wider regional economy. When the airport grows, it supports jobs not just on site but across logistics, retail, hospitality and professional services. When it secures long-haul routes, it strengthens the North West’s claim to be a genuinely outward-looking economy rather than a provincial outpost. The airport’s leadership therefore has an obvious interest in policies that make Britain more, not less, attractive to global business.

What the exchange between O’Toole and Burnham reveals is the increasingly fraught relationship between Labour’s political project and the business community it says it wants to court. The party has spent recent years trying to repair trust with industry after a long period in which many executives felt alienated by Labour’s tone and policy agenda. Yet every signal that suggests a return to higher taxes, more regulation or a suspicion of private wealth risks undoing that work. The danger for Labour is not only that business confidence weakens, but that its own growth ambitions are seen as unreliable.

In the end, the airport boss’s message is straightforward: if Britain wants new routes, new investment and a stronger economy, it must stop treating taxation as the answer to every problem. Public policy can open doors, but it cannot replace enterprise. For Burnham, and for Labour more broadly, the real test is whether they can resist the temptation to flatter their activist base at the expense of economic credibility. The answer will shape not only the party’s standing with business, but the prospects for regions such as Greater Manchester that depend on growth to turn political promise into lasting prosperity.