Can Andy Burnham’s Cabinet Deliver on His Ten-Year Plan?

[00:00:00]From the times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. I'm Manvin Rana.

[00:00:12]In what's becoming an alarmingly regular ritual, Downing Street has welcomed a new inhabitant.

[00:00:20]I have just come from Bookingham Palace where I have accepted his Majesty the King's invitation to form a government.

[00:00:30]>> Andy Bernham has become the seventh prime minister of the United Kingdom in just 10 years.

[00:00:37]>> I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you. We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last 40 years.

[00:00:55]>> The new prime minister has promised an agenda of change. But will that last when he sees the inbox?

[00:01:03]>> Continued escalation in the Middle East because the US and Iran have exchanged further strikes around the Strait of Hormuz. Both Russia and Ukraine have been targeting each other's economic infrastructure for months.

[00:01:15]>> The concern is simple. How can welfare spending keep rising when the country's finances are already stretched?

[00:01:22]>> Energy prices, inflation, food prices, petrol prices, people struggling.

[00:01:33]So, what can we expect from Andy Bernham's number 10?

[00:01:46]With a new cabinet forming, who's in and who's out? And what does it tell us about the direction the new government will be taking?

[00:01:56]The story today, Andy Bernham's first moves.

[00:02:18]On Friday night, Andy Bernham, only a few hours into being leader of the Labor [music] Party, he and about two dozen of his closest aids has gathered upstairs at the Robuck, which is a pub not far actually from our offices, Manvine, in uh in Burough in South London uh where they had a very jolly night. Some of them uh had a longer night than others.

[00:02:39]I think it's fair [laughter] to say Lara Spirit is deputy political editor for the Sunday Times. That normally means you get Monday off, but not when there's a new prime minister in town. They had a brief moment of restbite to enjoy what has been a very swift ascent for Andy Burnham. And I think they were very aware that not only the weekend ahead would be pretty intense for quite a few of them, but also on Monday when Andy Bernham would of course speak outside Downing Street, but would also begin the work of appointing his cabinet.

[00:03:22]Lara, as we're speaking, there are still talks going on in number 10 about the shape of the cabinet and the team around Andy Burnham. It's caused all sorts of controversy already. Firstly, tell us what we know about the people who are definitely out. The full gamut of the Star Loyalists are out. people like Steve Reid the former housing secretary, Liz Kendall, the former technology secretary, Richard Herman, the attorney general, Peter Kyle, the business secretary, Denny Chapman, a minister, a foreign office uh minister, Baroness Chapman, I should say, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, David Lammy, the deputy prime minister and the justice secretary, former justice secretary and deputy prime minister, also gone. And crucially and though there's a you know we don't have time to talk about whether she would necessarily be regarded as a call straight but Rachel Reeves who' been the former chancellor uh she had also been sacked and she'd been offered another job we should say another big job and had turned it down and we'll go for the backbenches now but crucially that's in a lot of names there I think it's fair to say that we weren't expecting all of those to go but they uh they've gone >> and those are sort of some of the big beasts of of the Star Cabinet as well. I mean, for somebody who's come in talking about unity, just how disruptive do you think that's going to be?

[00:04:37]>> I think that it will be quite difficult in time. I think at the moment there'll be some bruising. There'll be a big effort to rally around Andy Burnham in the new cabinet and to make this work.

[00:04:47]But I think there had been really a really strong assumption that some of those names would at least be offered some other big jobs. But I think there will be more pressure now perhaps if something does go wrong given that all of these names are now outside the tent.

[00:05:01]And Lara, there had been so much speculation over who would get the chancellor's gig. People were already debating whether Ed Milliband would be brilliant or disastrous. There was talk of Shabbanim Mood going in and as somebody who's been praised for her competence. [music] In the end, it was a surprise choice.

[00:05:20]Yeah, it was. And we're still just getting a full [music] picture of how this happened. I don't think anybody was really expecting John Healey to become the chancellor. I think it had been considered a two-horse race between Shabbalam Mimmude, the home secretary, who will stay in her position now, and [music] Ed Milliband, formerly the energy secretary, now newly appointed as the foreign secretary. In the end, they've gone for John Healey, who of course resigned as defense secretary over the lack of funding as sufficient funding to his mind around the [music] defense investment plan. and so has spent um you know a few short weeks on the back benches uh and who now returns to the second [music] most important job in government.

[00:06:04]He was a treasury minister back in 2001 until 2010. So I suppose he has some experience of the department but many will see this as a compromise because it's already quite hard to bring the the party together. You couldn't pick Shabbanammud or Red Milliband without losing half the party. Will people view Shabban Mammud being kept as home secretary? Because she's obviously one plaudit from some, but there has been criticism within the party about some of her reforms on immigration. There has been, but I think that if she had been in number 11, she would have gone there with the assurance that those immigration reforms would be protected.

[00:06:42]And we know that Andy Bernham has been supportive of the thrust of those reforms. Though I think actually for those who are critics of Shabbad Mammud, you know, they will see this as something of a victory. But I think one of the big questions that immediately jumps out here and which does suggest that actually this was a fairly last minute or at least uh not a long-running plan to have Healey in this position is the gender balance here. Previously under Stalma, you had Star's prime minister and then the other great offices of state, the three great offices of state were held by women. You had Shabban Mammud in the home office, you had a vet Cooper in the foreign office and you had Rachel Reeves in the treasury. You now have three men and one woman. You have Andy Bernham, you have Ed Milliband in the foreign office, you have John Healey as a chancellor and you have Shabban Mimmude as the home secretary. And the fact that there had been such a big discussion about the absence of the long uh held elusive Labour female leader means that this is going to be an even greater bruise. So even though there was this kind of electrical political logic behind Andy Bernham becoming prime minister, there were still some in the Labour party who were very bitter about the fact that there wasn't even a woman in the contest given that uh you know the Conservative party have had multiple women leaders at this point and Labour is yet to elect their first one. And the fact that these great officers of state are now really supremely imbalanced when it comes to gender, I think is going to make some people in the parliamentary labor party very very unhappy. We're starting to get a sense of the sort of government Andy Bernham wants to be running, but having set all of that out very vaguely in the odd speech having taken power, he kind of disappears for a lot of the summer.

[00:08:13]Just talk us through what the next few months will look like. Will there be much scrutiny on what his plan is?

[00:08:19]>> Yeah, so I think what we heard from Andy Bernham was a promise that we would hear some immediate measures on the cost of living. And so I think there's a real sense from those around him that they do want to hit the ground running. And so we will see some very early measures I think from this Burnham government. But then of course there is a wider plan, a kind of 10-year plan. And of course we're never short of 10ear plans, but there will be a wider 10-year plan that we'll be expecting further on down the line. Most prime ministers start off with a plan. It very rarely survives impact with reality. So let's just have a look at some of the policy areas he's going to have to address quite quickly.

[00:08:57]Firstly, if you're trying to define Bernmism, I suppose the one policy we know he's very keen on is devolution and the public control of utilities.

[00:09:06]What are you expecting to hear on devolution? We've already heard quite a lot because we did have a big speech from Andy Burnham in Manchester. Um it was one of his big early speeches where uh you know he spoke about devolution the sense of driving good growth in every postcode.

[00:09:23]>> The whole country suffers when the regions and nations are not meeting their potential. Imagine good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart.

[00:09:36]Well imagine no more. Let's make it happen.

[00:09:44]>> Devolution given his time in uh Manchester is is such a big part of his political identity and something that I think he feels very very confident about. We've heard about number 10 North for example which uh is going to be a big part of that vision to uh distribute and devolve power across the country.

[00:10:01]The job of number 10 North will be to make power flow into the Midlands, into the southwest, into the east of England, and yes, into London, as I said before, as much as into the northeast, Yorkshire and the Humber, and here in the Northwest, we know that Caroline Simpson, for example, who is uh very highly regarded the chief executive of uh Manchester 's combined authority is going to serve as the kind of deputy chief of staff uh to head up that office there. We know Bernham wants to spend time there every week for example and then uh of course separately like you say on uh on utilities. This is going to be a really >> this was sort of one of the the second point he mentioned in his speech in Downing Street he lamented centralization and he lamented privatization of of bits of of the public of public utilities.

[00:10:57]>> Yes. And the diagnosis that Andy Bem has given is to his mind very clear. It is essentially that the country took a series of wrong turns in the 1980s. The fatism neoliberalism that followed has been responsible for hollering out communities uh and making sure that you know Britain is not firing on all cylinders and could be much stronger than it otherwise would have been. And at the heart of that I think will be the case that he'll make on utilities. So, you know, we reported in the Sunday Times at the weekend that Temp's water, for example, you know, the biggest water company in the UK would be put under a form of special administration by Burnham in one of his earlier acts uh in power, but I think that you'll see they're exploring kind of different models for uh for different areas. So, I think one of the key things here is not just to say there'll be lots of nationalization, but actually you hear the language of public control, which is essentially saying can we look at different models for doing these kinds of things. There's also been hints particularly over the weekend about North Sea oil. What do we know about his plans for that?

[00:11:55]>> We know that he doesn't want to rip up the Labour Manifesto and of course in the Labour manifesto it says that there will not be new licenses uh in the North Sea for drilling. Now that doesn't rule out new drilling or expanded drilling, but it does rule out new licenses altogether. So while we know that there won't be new licenses, we've had that confirmed. They're not going to go against the manifesto on that point. I think there will be an intervention that centers around being more flexible in this area essentially. And actually, when Bern has been asked about this on the Makerfield campaign trail by the New Statesman, for example, did sound pretty open-minded about this wider question.

[00:12:31]It's interesting that the president of the United States of America has already joined the arguments of saying the people of Abodine are dancing in the streets because they're so delighted that Andy Bernham will be opening up North Sea oil. So, um, we know what Donald Trump thinks about it already.

[00:12:51]One of the big issues that he's been talking about again today in his speech outside Downing Street is about the cost of living and understanding that people are feeling the pinch. What can he possibly do on that to make people feel like he's making a difference quite soon?

[00:13:08]There's been a few suggestions around.

[00:13:10]So, for example, could you raise the income tax threshold, the lowest income tax threshold? Could you take that off energy bills, for example? You know, there are a number of different questions that Andy Bernham will be analyzing on this in the immediate term, but like you say, this kind of question of breathing space is going to be a big part of his language over the next few months.

[00:13:32]One of the the first issues he says he's going to address, he said he was walking into number 10 and the first thing he'd bring up was an end to rough sleeping.

[00:13:40]What do we know about his agenda on that?

[00:13:42]>> Yes, so we know that uh this is an issue that And cares a lot about. we saw when he was mayor of Greater Manchester, he had that a bed every night initiative for rough sleepers where there were, you know, resources made available uh for those who were rough sleeping. It's a fairly contested record, the record of rough sleeping that he oversaw in Manchester, but it's certainly something that few would doubt he cares very deeply about and that is something that he wants to come in and make a big play for. So, it'll be interesting to see how he plans on doing that. So Laura, those are the policy areas that he's been very clear he wants to address. The others that he's going to have to address pretty soon, whether he he likes it or not, are particularly around the economy. He has an interesting choice of chancellor. While John Healey was in defense, one of the things you would hear very often was that you would have to do something about welfare so that you could pay for defense. What are we expecting this government to do on welfare now that John Healey's the man who will certainly have a say in that decision? I mean it will be very interesting to see the broader welfare question. I think it's fair to say for quite some time we've sort of understood that welfare would be an issue that Labour would be very interested in under Andy Bernham. And actually there's been bit of a common misconception that those around Burnham particularly some of those on the soft left are completely against any welfare reform on the basis that they were part of the welfare rebellion last year that obviously very severely politically damaged K star.

[00:15:08]They would say and you know I think have privately said that actually they were against crude cuts to the welfare budget. That's how they viewed it those changes particularly around the cuts to personal independent payments and actually they are interested in wider reform and recognize that it's something that Andy Bon will probably have to do and I think they are feeling you know pretty lucky and happy that there are two reviews that are already underway.

[00:15:29]So the TIMS review that's looking into benefits particularly those personal independent payments that we mentioned uh final publication of that is expected in the autumn around November but uh you know we've also got Alan Milbour a former health secretary in uh the Blair years who's been running a review into needs so not in education or training that referring to young people of course we've seen about a million young people who are in that category now that's something that the government are very very worried about because you know it's not simply that uh that you might be slightly older border and on benefits.

[00:16:00]If you're leaving uh school and you're going straight on to benefits as many of these people in that category are, then it is clearly a key area that they want to to focus on. And we're expecting the final report final report for that as well a bit later on. And you know, I think those around Burnham, in fact, I know those around Burnham are very interested in taking those reviews very seriously and and see them as important blueprints from which they could uh they could mount a serious effort at reform.

[00:16:23]So I think in that in that regard those two reviews will be very very important in terms of working out what it is that Burden does next on welfare.

[00:16:30]>> And in terms of needs I mean will part of that also address the sickness bill you know particularly in terms of mental health?

[00:16:37]>> Yeah I think it's 58 billion is the sickness and disability bill but that's projected to rise to close to 80 billion by 2030. So uh that will certainly be something that they focus on and is certainly at the core of particularly Milburn's uh review but also something Tims is interested in too. And where are they on council houses? That was something we heard a lot about at the start of the Starmmer premiership, but it wasn't something that we really saw happening. Andy Bernham wants to build lots of council houses. That is absolutely.

[00:17:04]>> The ambition is there.

[00:17:05]>> The ambition is there. He would say there's I think 1.5 million families who are waiting for social housing. that this is a really key shortage that uh the government needs to address and that building these houses is actually going to be one of the most significant things that he does. And Laura, having appointed John Healey as chancellor, it's almost a way of making sure the government has its feet held to the fire on defense spending and the promise that they've made because obviously that's what John Healey resigned over. So, they're going to have to find a lot of the budget that will pay for defense.

[00:17:38]There have been hints they might increase the aid budget again, which is something Labour cut back on. Even with welfare reforms, that's bound to have an impact on taxes. What do we think they might announce?

[00:17:50]>> Well, we know that Andy Bernham has said that there there might be room for movement on on tax. We've seen various possibilities like you know we we know from from previous pronouncements that he thinks for example that people's wealth isn't necessarily taxed as fairly as it should be relative to people's income that council tax should be reformed. Of course we haven't seen a a kind of rework of those rates since the 1990s. So uh there is a real sense that that is now not an equal uh tax. But we don't have a full sense of exactly what Annie Bernham wants to do on tax yet. We know that he's open to looking, as I said, to uh raising that threshold perhaps, but really at the moment, we're going to have to wait and see. And a big question, of course, will be what happens in the in the budget. And that will be one of the most I mean, probably the most important uh indications over the next six months on how well or how badly this government is going to do [music] on defense. Again, you know, the fact that John Healey is now in charge of the money bodess well for people inside the mod. Uh it was interesting that he almost gave the job to Rachel Reeves, who I think has probably been seen as the enemy of defense budgets for a while. What can we expect in terms of the war in Ukraine? He comes in at a time where there are two wars raging, the war in the Middle East as well as the war with Ukraine. We've never really seen him on the international stage before. How do we expect him to deal with those?

[00:19:23]>> I mean, I think that diplomats that have been, you know, working in Ukraine and elsewhere feel probably very happy to see John Healey in that position because he has been a really solid supporter for their efforts in particular. One of the the biggest questions of course now is what this means for funding for defense.

[00:19:39]And we know John Healey of course resigned from the government on the basis that he felt that Kier Dharma uh had been uh unable to fund the defense investment plan that very long awaited and long delay plan for funding for the armed forces over the coming years and that he had put a huge amount of pressure on StarMA and also the Treasury to make sure that they found those extra billion billions for defense. Now we know that there's a around5 billion pound black hole already for the existing defense investment plan that Healey will have to find at the upcoming budget but actually the existing defense investment plan will not go far enough for John Healey. So there will be an added question there about whether or not he will be able to reopen that question and find even more money for defense. Now Andy Bernham has spoke about looking at being more flex finding flexibility in some of the fiscal uh rules particularly to see whether you could fund more on on infrastructure and there will be a big effort to find a way uh perhaps a creative way to find some more money I think for defense particularly now that Healey is in that position for Karma. You know, we we hear now that many of his greatest achievements were on the international stage. It did also earn him a reputation here though of being never here. How much do you think Andy Burnham is going to involve himself in in geopolitics? And do we know what his relationship with Donald Trump is likely to be like? Well, he's had his uh his first call with President Trump at which uh you know, Bernham said that the G20 would be hosted in Manchester. So I think there is an effort to make sure that the start of this relationship goes well. A big part of that will probably be the posture on North Sea oil and gas.

[00:21:23]So even though it's not going to go as far as President Trump would like and may well fall very far short of it, uh moving further in the direction that he would like them to go may well soothe relations with the Trump administration.

[00:21:35]And he spoke about this in a recent interview with Gary Linker when he said uh I'll deal with him very upfront in the same way. I think he likes people to deal with him. uh so clearly feels that actually just being straightforward with President Trump is the way it works. Of course, we know that that's not necessarily the way it always plays out with uh President Trump and it's not really able to predict exactly how that relationship uh will go. But he said, you know, it's about being yourself, isn't it? It's about respecting the office, the relationship, the UK US relationship, but you know, where you disagree, do it, but do it in a way that's meeting him where he's at.

[00:22:06]>> Yeah. And there is clearly a bit of soothing needed because Donald Trump has said of Andy Bernham in the past that he's the mayor of a town and extremely liberal.

[00:22:15]>> I don't know anything. I see that he was I guess the mayor of a town. I hear he's extremely liberal, >> which in Trump speak I think is is meant as an insult.

[00:22:24]>> Yes. Um [laughter] um that was the very initial impression that he got. And I mean clearly people in the US didn't necessarily know that much about Andy Bernham before this happened. So, it's not necessarily altogether surprising. So, let's see. I mean, in this interview, Andy Bernham said he described Manager as some town when he was referring to my position, and I might have to, you know what, Ms are like, Gary, that won't have gone down fantastically well in the city I used to represent. Um, so I think he was, you know, he was feeling relatively light-hearted uh in his remarks there, Andy Burnham. And sometimes Trump really does like and respect people who have different views to him. So, you've seen him host Zam Dani at the White House, for example. that relationship has been genuinely confounding to some people uh in Magaland on the basis that uh you know Trump does seem to have something of a begrudging respect for him and a kind of rapport with him when when he hosted him. So uh let's see whether or not Andy Bernham can make this work.

[00:23:16]There will be plenty of hurdles Andy Bernham will have to clear if he wants to have harmonious relationships with the US.

[00:23:25]>> Where is Andy Burnham on the question of Europe? Well, Andy Bannam has previously said, he said this at Labour conference uh last year that he would like to see Britain rejoin the European Union in his lifetime. Now, he has very much clarified that very strongly is to say this is really not something that's on the table uh before the next election.

[00:23:44]And I think it's likely that you'll see a move similar to that that we've seen under Stalma because remember that Stalma has pushed for closer relationships with the EU but stopping short of those red lines that we saw in the manifesto. And I think for people listening, one of the key things to think about when we're trying to predict what Andy Bernham might do is to think about that labor manifesto because he knows and people around him know that if they move away from certain tenants in that manifesto, they will immediately face questions about whether or not they have a mandate to do that. [music] Given that voters at the general election voted for Labor under this manifesto, if they, for example, said, "We're going to scrap the red lines. We want to be part of the EU single market and customs union." That would clearly go against the labor manifesto. and would would would really be difficult I think for Andy Bernham to do. So at the moment they've recommitted to those red lines and so closer relations within those bounds I think is what we can broadly expect.

[00:24:39]Lara, we're starting to get an idea of what the new government will look like and some of its key priorities. Andy Bernham keeps talking about a 10-year plan and yet he is the seventh prime minister in a decade. Is it almost impossible to to govern at this stage?

[00:24:57]Is it worth having a 10-year plan when people tend to last so much less?

[00:25:03]There's something definitely very confident about having a 10-year plan. I don't think it's fair to say and perhaps some would say hubristic but I mean this just seems to be a reflex that politicians have to set out something that will take a decade to uh achieve in their mind it signals uh ambition and the ability to think strategically over a long period of time and certainly when you hear Andy Bonham talk about hope in every heart there's a real attempt to say actually that they want to do politics differently that they're genuinely going to deliver change but certainly I think you're right to point out that it kind of jars with politics that we've seen in recent years where prime ministers have not been in short supply at all and Ali Bernham will be hoping that he can buck the trend but certainly there's a lot of ambition at the moment around Andy Bernham to make sure that uh this transition to power is cemented uh in a future general election and that he can remain there for many years.

[00:26:01][music] That was Laura Spirit, deputy political editor for the Sunday Times. The producers today were Olivia Casease and El Scott. The executive producer was Harry Sto. Sound design was by Dave Cesy and theme composition was by Marloto.

[00:26:20]If you can, do leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.

[00:26:32]>> [music]