What a Burnham premiership would look like

 This article is part of a series looking at what Sir Keir Starmer’s potential challengers might do if handed the keys to 10 Downing Street. For the articles on the other contenders, use the navigation above.

For a man who claims to despise Westminster politics, it is Whitehall’s worst-kept secret that Andy Burnham is desperate to return.

Backed by dozens of Labour MPs on the soft Left of the party, allies of the Mayor of Greater Manchester have said he has a credible plan to return as an MP “within weeks”.

They added that he was preparing to announce a “radical rewiring” of the state that would set out a 10-year growth plan and revoke Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of proportional representation.

Economy

In an interview with The Telegraph last September, Mr Burnham set out his vision for a high-tax, high-spend economy. This included higher council tax on expensive homes in London and the South East, £40bn of borrowing to build council houses, income tax cuts for lower earners, as well as a 50p rate for the highest paid.

Mr Burnham said: “There are people in homes in London that are [worth] double-figure millions paying less council tax than people here. It’s just not justifiable.”

Currently, council tax bands are based on an assessment of a property’s value in 1991. The Mayor of Greater Manchester did not set out how he would reform the system. A process of revaluing properties would prove costly and time-consuming. It could make adding additional tax bands a more attractive option.

Last year, Mr Burnham praised Angela Rayner in her role as housing secretary when the Government announced a £39bn investment in affordable housing, with the provision that 60 per cent would be for social rent.

However, he said 100 per cent of the money should have gone to social housing – representing a spending increase of £15.6bn.

His flagship economic policy would be to introduce a 10 per cent “starting rate” for lower earners while raising the top level of income tax to 50 per cent.

At present, workers start paying income tax, set at 20 per cent, on earnings between £12,571 and £50,270. Under Mr Burnham’s proposals, a portion of this would be cut to 10 per cent, a tax break that would disproportionately benefit lower earners.

At the same time, the top rate of income tax, currently 45 per cent on earnings above £125,140, would rise to 50 per cent. However, Mr Burham did not make clear at what point the 50p threshold would start.

Mr Burnham would also be likely to relax Rachel Reeves’s fiscal rules to allow greater spending. He said last year that Britain should not be “in hock” to the bond market. However, he has since distanced himself from this comment, amid fears his appointment as prime minister would spook international investors.

A key proponent of devolution, Mr Burnham has also prioritised a 10-year plan for local services. To ease the burden of funding adult social care, which can amount to around half of some councils’ annual spending, he is reportedly considering an “overhaul” of inheritance tax.

Defence

Mr Burnham has backed the Government’s call to increase defence spending but wants that increase to come from bigger borrowing rather than cuts to Britain’s ballooning welfare budget. 

Sir Keir has vowed to raise defence spending from 2.3 per cent of GDP to 2.5 per cent by 2027, funded through cuts to the international aid budget. Further rises to 3 per cent by the end of the Parliament in 2029 and 3.5 per cent by 2035 have been promised but with no outline as to how they would be funded.

In an interview with Bloomberg in April, Mr Burnham said he would support increased funding using greater government borrowing. He said: “There’s certainly a case, when we look at the pressure on defence spending, to consider that exceptionally outside of the [fiscal] rules.”

Brexit

Mr Burnham has been unequivocal in his support for Britain rejoining the EU. Speaking at a fringe event at Labour Party conference in September, he criticised his party for failing to “call out” the economic damage of Brexit.

He added: “Long term, I’m going to be honest, I’m going to say it... I hope in my lifetime I see this country rejoin.”

Immigration

Before the EU referendum in 2016, Mr Burnham warned that free movement of people had “risked the safety of our streets”.

More recently, he defended Shabana Mahmood’s immigration plans in March as “balancing up fairness, but also security at our borders” in an interview with Sky News.

However, on the same day, he appeared to side with Ms Rayner’s criticisms of the Government’s immigration policy as “un-British”. He told BBC Radio 4 that Ms Rayner had been echoing “moral questions”.

The NHS

Mr Burnham used to say his lifelong ambition was to become health secretary, a passion which began in his early working years as a junior health researcher in the Labour Party.

He served as health secretary during a turbulent period for the previous Labour government in 2009 when he lacked the time before a looming 2010 general election to roll out major reforms to social care to align it better with the NHS.

However, his white paper on social care remains on a shelf in Whitehall, containing some “pretty radical solutions” for funding the service. The main idea was to attach a 10 per cent levy to people’s estates to pay for their care after their death. It was immediately nicknamed the “death tax” by the Tories.

Mr Burnham supports greater health devolution and giving local government more responsibility for NHS provision. He has cited a 2022 study in The Lancet that found following devolution of health and care, life expectancy rose faster in Greater Manchester than other parts of the country.

He has argued that giving local mayors and councils more power would lead to better spending of taxpayers’ money because these local leaders understand the needs of an area better than central government.