Councillors look into housing loans approved while Andy Burnham ran Greater Manchester

The story

Councillors in Greater Manchester are investigating loans made to property companies from a public housing fund while Andy Burnham, now prime minister, was the region's mayor. Three of the companies that received money are controlled by Sheikh Mansour, the Abu Dhabi owner of Manchester City.

The loans, worth about £55 million in total, came from the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Loan Fund. The fund was set up in 2015 with £300 million lent by central government to help build 10,000 new homes across the region.

The decisions were made in 2017 at two meetings chaired by Burnham. They were taken by all members of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority together, not by the mayor alone.

John Leech, the new chairman of the combined authority's overview and scrutiny committee and leader of the Liberal Democrat opposition on Manchester City Council, said concerns had been raised about how open the approval process was. He said it had been seen as very opaque, and it was not always clear why one bid succeeded and another did not. The committee has asked officials for a report on the fund and plans to question them at a private meeting before deciding whether to make recommendations to the current mayor.

The committee cannot punish the mayor, but it can investigate, demand answers and challenge decisions. Conservative shadow sports minister Louie French said Burnham had serious questions to answer and that taxpayers deserved to know how the money was handed out. Burnham's office declined to comment when the loans were first reported earlier this month.