Andy Burnham has had a strange entry to being Prime Minister. Most new Prime Ministers are straight into the fire, answering questions in the House of Commons and being held accountable by MPs. Burnham, like Boris Johnson in 2019, became Prime Minister during the Summer Recess and has been able to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. Many have been critical of his failure to set out his position in a major policy address, with Kemi Badenoch saying on Tuesday that “He has been in office for 43 days, during which I have learned how he puts the milk in his tea and exactly what he thinks about pork scratchings, but I have not had the pleasure of asking him any questions. We are all grateful that he has finally found time to come to Parliament to answer some…”
On Tuesday Andy Burnham gave a Ministerial Statement called the ‘Direction of Government’ in which he tried to set out his vision as Prime Minister. He set out a number of key things:
– He pledged to put water back into public ownership. He criticised the decision taken under Thatcher in the 1980s to privatise water, calling it a “leaking monument”. This rhetoric goes much further than Starmer was willing to go on nationalisation.
– He promised the “biggest redistribution of power” in the country’s history. This followed announcements over the Summer, including the creation of “Number 10 North” to highlight the priority of devolution.
– He promised reform to the housing system by allowing leaseholders to convert their holding to a freehold.
– He reiterated the cost-of-living adjustments announced over the Summer, including VAT cuts on energy bills and reduced interest rates for pubs.
Burnham took questions from across the House, fielding 125 in all over the course of three hours. When Kemi Badenoch, as Leader of the Opposition, questioned him she focused on substance over spin. In particular, she pressed Burnham on whether he would raise taxes in the Autumn Statement and told Burnham that running the country would be harder than running Greater Manchester, particularly focusing on Burnham’s lack of national security experience.
On Wednesday, Burnham faced his first PMQs session. Again, Badenoch pushed Burnham on tax, asking straightforwardly “is he preparing to raise taxes again? Yes or no?” As expected, Burnham deployed the usual refrain that he was not willing to “write a future budget” from the Despatch Box. Badenoch also again pushed the issue of defence. She pressed Burnham on whether he would meet the Defence Investment Plan and spend 2.5% of GDP on defence by 2030 – a commitment Burnham has so far declined to confirm in the same terms as his predecessor, saying only that the review would “report in the usual way”.
Burnham has undoubtedly had a honeymoon period in office so far. The “Burnham Bounce” has seen Labour’s polling numbers move back above Reform UK’s for the first time since the spring, as voters warm to a Prime Minister with a more overtly populist economic offer than Starmer’s. Yet his government faces clear challenges.
The first is fiscal credibility. Burnham has announced a number of spending pledges – on housing, on energy bills, on pub interest rates – but has not yet set out how he will meet them, and the Office for Budget Responsibility is likely to take a dim view of promises made without a costed plan attached. The Autumn Statement, rather than this week’s exchanges, will be the real test of whether the “Direction of Government” amounts to more than a rhetorical reset.
Secondly, there is the bond market. Gilt yields have crept higher in recent weeks as investors weigh the cost of Burnham’s redistributive agenda against the state of the public finances, and any sense that the Treasury is losing its grip on borrowing costs would quickly overshadow the goodwill generated this week.
Thirdly, there is the issue of defence spending. Badenoch’s repeated focus on the 2.5%-by-2030 target reflects a broader unease, at home and among allies, about whether a Prime Minister who built his career on devolution and local government has the appetite – or the instinct – to prioritise hard security spending in a difficult fiscal environment. Until Burnham gives a clearer answer than he has so far, that question will keep being asked.
As Beth Rigby said on Sky News, the Summer Honeymoon is over and ‘Winter is coming’. When asked by Badenoch to name a single spending request he had declined, Burnham could not answer. He will have to find those answers in time for the Budget or his pledge of fiscal credibility will appear very weak indeed.