Andy Burnham has been accused of "ignoring rural communities" ahead of a nationwide "listening tour" of the UK.
Speaking to GB News, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire Helen Morgan said the Prime Minister is currently "only listening to certain types of people".
Ms Morgan said: "I think listening to people is always a good thing to do, but my concern with this Government is that they're only listening to certain types of people.
"They're not coming to rural areas, for example, and understanding our issues, and they've taken a decision to really put all their eggs in one basket and ignore places that don't have a Mayor in place."
The Lib Dem MP urged the Prime Minister to "listen to what really matters to people" during his nationwide tour.
She said: "So I hope that Andy Burnham is going to come and listen to people that don't fit into that structure, and I also hope he's going to listen to actually what really matters to people.
"Which is around their energy bills, coping with the cost of living crisis and around the performance of the NHS, which is obviously the area that I'm most interested in."
As host Mark White argued the tour is "performative", Ms Morgan admitted she "broadly agreed" with his argument.
She told Britain's News Channel: "I think it's very obvious what we need to do with the cost of living crisis. We need to look at energy bills and look at how we can discount people's kind of standard duties on their energy bills.That's the one big number that's really, really hurting people's pockets.
"I think we've put forward some good ideas to help people with the cost of living. They don't involve a large trip around the country, but listening to people is important.
"Staying in Westminster and listening to each other is a problem. Every single MP should be out there listening to their residents and their community and feeding that back to the Prime Minister, in my view."
Asked for her verdict on Labour's early release prison scheme, Ms Morgan urged Mr Burnham to "protect dangerous criminals from being released into the community".
She said: "I think everybody's very concerned about the early release scheme, particularly where there are people who might have been domestic abusers.
"We've heard about the killers of PC Harper, and I think people are very concerned about those prisoners being released early."
Ms Morgan continued: "But the reality is we haven't built any new prisons for many, many years, and spaces need to be protected so that the rest of the system can function.
"I'd like to see the Government protect some of those types of criminals from being released into the community because they're clearly dangerous.
"But we need to get on and provide the prison spaces so that we don't have to face this early release problem."
Announcing his tour, Mr Burnham told The Mirror: "This month I'm out of Westminster and into your town. Not for the photographs, but because I want to hear directly from people in their communities.
"I'll be asking one question: what would actually make your life better?
"We know a lot of the issues. People have been saying it for years and no one listened. Bills that land like a threat. A high street of shuttered units and rip-off prices."






