Andy Burnham says North-East is too big for single "metro mayor"

Mr Burnham accused Chancellor George Osborne of ignoring the wishes of local people with his “mayor or bust” order, saying: “You don’t get true devolution with a gun to your head.”

And he backed the region’s council chiefs who have argued their area – from Newton Aycliffe to the Scottish border – is too big for a single mayor, adding: “I think they are right.”

Speaking at a Westminster event, the party’s health spokesman also argued better cross-Pennine rail links were the North’s priority, rather than faster journeys to London.

However, he declined to say if the £50 billion HS2 high-speed rail scheme should be delayed to fund improvements in the North first, saying that he was still weighing up that case.

And Mr Burnham risked a worsening row with Harriet Harman, Labour’s deputy leader, over her call for the party not to oppose all the Government’s welfare cuts.

Ms Harman said Labour should back limiting tax credits to a family’s first two children, as the first step to winning back a public that no longer trusted it on benefits.

But Mr Burnham, a father-of three, taunted his leader, saying: “We have got George and Harriet’s two-child test - and I have to hold my hands up and say I’ve already failed that one.”

He revealed he had urged the Shadow Cabinet to vote against the Welfare Reform and Work Bill next week, rather than abstain, unless Labour’s amendments were accepted.

And he implied he could rebel – requiring his resignation from the Shadow Cabinet – saying: “I am not normally somebody who then goes outside of the collective ways of agreeing things, but I’ve made my position very clear.”

Mr Burnham condemned tax credit cuts that would make it less attractive to work and would “punish” children and the removal of targets to cut relative child poverty.

On devolution, he said: “George Osborne is going about it in the wrong way. He is trying to say the North-East of England should have imposed upon it one mayor.

“Unsurprisingly, they are saying ‘hang on a minute, we know the North-East of England, is that not vesting too much in one person’ – and I think they are right.

“Devolution will work if it comes from the bottom up. You don’t get true devolution with a gun to your head, but that is the way that Osborne is going about it.”

Mr Osborne is demanding a ‘metro mayor’ for the North-East Combined Authority (NECA) – covering County Durham, Newcastle, Sunderland, North Tyneside, South Tyneside and Northumberland

Potentially on offer are extensive powers over transport – including to run bus services – planning, housing, the police and to integrate health and social care budgets.