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Andy Burnham used his Labour conference speech to announce sweeping reforms to pensions, social care, water ownership and the voting system, admitting Brexit has done more harm than good and that his plans must wait until after the next election.
Andy Burnham has staked his future on a gamble that the public will back radical progressive policies on social care, electoral reform and Europe, telling voters his agenda will break the mould of the last 40 years and allow Britain to rise again.
In a deeply personal hour-long speech at Labour's conference in Liverpool, he began building his next general election manifesto. He acknowledged he may pay a political price for creating sharp new dividing lines in politics. The prime minister admitted his ambitious policy prospectus would have to wait until after the next election because of the state of the public finances. He said he would try to give people some breathing space on the cost of living.
He told Labour activists that measures to get bills and fares down were a sign of intent while they waited for bigger changes. He said he would love to go quicker but had to be honest about what the country could afford, and would stick to fiscal rules to get borrowing and debt down. During the speech, Burnham paused several times after being overcome with emotion while mentioning the death of his father.
He said he wanted to show the UK was something worth saving and worth fighting for. He said his plan would not just hold the country together but allow it to rise again. He declared that today Britain draws a line on a decade of division, stops doomscrolling on posts running the country down, and puts the nation on a new path. Burnham promised to be unflinchingly honest about where the country had gone wrong.
Burnham Hints At EU Relationship Reset
He said it was time to admit Brexit hasn't given us control and that it was a handbrake on growth. In his strongest hint yet that he would look again at EU membership, he said he would set out plans for a longer-term relationship with the bloc at the reset summit this autumn. Options could include trading relationships like Norway, Switzerland or Canada, the customs union or single market, or even reversing Brexit entirely.
He said Britain cannot have a clear path into the rest of this century until it decides on a long-term relationship with its largest market, and that Brexit has done more harm than good. His first major pledge was to restore the stock of public housing to ease a crisis of rising rents. He promised councils greater power to get new construction underway.
If absentee landlords left rental properties in disrepair, councils would force them to renovate, with legislation passed if necessary. He promised two new pieces of legislation later this year, including a leasehold reform bill to put curbs on charges for homes, saying the days of being squeezed for every penny are coming to an end. His second plan was to reverse the privatisation of water utilities under Margaret Thatcher three decades ago.
This touches a nerve with households dealing with poor water and sewerage services due to low investment by private operators. Thames Water is close to financial collapse after big investors, including Macquarie Bank, loaded it with debt and took out generous dividends. Burnham wants to restore public ownership if a private operator is no good.
He said the common wealth of Britain, its homes, energy, water and care, had been stripped out and sold for profit, and that the wealth created for the many was seen as an opportunity for the few. He said the British right talk about taking back control, but they are the ones who gave it away in the first place, remarks that drew a standing ovation.
New Social Care Pledge For Elderly
His third pledge was to set up a new public operator of the national electricity grid to compete with private energy companies. He made cost, not climate change, the key message on energy. He said he would be pragmatic about oil and gas from the North Sea, a hint that he would back new projects to boost supply. The fourth agenda item was social care for the aged and vulnerable.
He promised more care for the elderly in their own home and a new National Care Service to offer free support. He said there is only one real answer: a person-centred, high-quality care service that starts in the home, in the best traditions of the party, where everyone contributes and everyone is covered, free at the point of use, with no care charges paid out of the basic state pension.
He plans to break the link between wage growth and pensions and instead raise pensions by inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher. He claimed this would still leave millions of pensioners better off. He said pensioners would benefit from the new care system, expected to follow the Scottish system in covering care costs but not accommodation, and a promise to exempt them from income tax.
He suggested care workers were invisible to the political class but told them: You are not invisible to me. I see you. I thank you. And I am sorry that my profession has let down yours for so long.
Pension Triple Lock Abandonment Announced
The words will be interpreted as a sign he is preparing to carve out migrant care workers from Shabana Mahmood's immigration measures. This was Burnham's fifth big idea and his bravest moment. He swept away Britain's iconic and bipartisan triple lock decided in 2010, which ensured pensions rise by inflation, average wage growth or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher.
The state pension now costs 154 billion pounds (292 billion dollars) per year, more than twice the defence budget, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It has risen from 4.3 to 4.9 per cent of national income since 2010. This is higher than in Australia, partly because Britain lacks Australia's superannuation system. Burnham promised to replace the triple lock with a double lock: increasing the pension by inflation or 2.5 per cent, whichever is higher.
This abandons a Labour pledge from the last election, but the change would take effect in 2030, after the next election. The risk is serious, given the Conservatives can appeal to older voters who stand to lose, but the plan could help fund new social care services those same voters may support. The sixth big idea was about the voting system that delivers victory to the candidate who is first past the post in every electorate.
Electoral Reform Commission To Replace FPTP
In most races, Britain only counts the primary vote on the ballot paper, a fundamentally different approach to Australia's preferential system. Burnham did not name his favoured reform but clearly wants to drop first past the post. He confirmed he would put electoral reform in Labour's next manifesto, announcing a cross-party national commission to consider options to replace first past the post with a form of proportional representation.
He said Britain cannot succeed in the eyes of the world if it continues with the levels of political turbulence seen in recent times, noting he is the seventh prime minister in 10 years. He said all would have failed in their public duties if they carried on as they are and opened the door of No 10 to a divisive government on 30 per cent of the vote or less.
The commission would recommend a new system, which Burnham would take to voters as a policy pledge at the next election. This suggests the 2029 election would be fought on the current system, not the new one. Over time, however, Burnham seemed intent on bringing Britain closer to the Australian system. Labour could benefit from preferential voting because it could gain the second preferences of Greens voters.
But it could also work for Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, because her party might benefit from preferences from small right-wing parties. It might even help Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, if he keeps the party's core support ahead of the Conservatives. Whether this backfires on Burnham is impossible to predict when the next election is not due until 2029 and the subsequent one in 2034.
The overall impact might strengthen the major two parties after the shift to smaller parties. Burnham said it was the drive of his government for every person to feel greater control over the basics of life and renew faith that systems could work for them. With global economic storm clouds gathering and Labour dropping behind Reform UK in one poll this week, Burnham was determined to leave his audience some hope.
He said he wanted to show the UK was something worth saving, worth fighting for, and that his plan would allow the country to rise again.
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GuardianAus:This story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
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