Jul 2, 2026 · 9 min · 8 segments
Andy Burnham has big ideas - will he need big tax hikes to pay for them? And if so, who could he target? Christian May looks at his options, stating with the banking sector. Week in Business is also…
And we are now beginning to look more closely at what the economic agenda might be for Andy Burnham.
And there's quite a lot of guesswork in doing so because he's set out his vision in quite broad brushstrokes.
But there are a number of points of reality with which he's going to come into contact pretty soon.
And by pretty soon, I mean the 20th of July, which is when I think he becomes prime minister.
I think he becomes Labour leader on the 17th, but you can't see the king over the weekend or something.
And what's he going to face? Well, he's going to face a bill for his early promises.
There's no way that he can achieve the kind of... massive overhaul and empowering of local government the way that he wants to, without a price tag being attached to that.
And if he wants local authorities to take greater control over water and energy and transport, that's going to come with a price tag.
to say nothing of house building, commendable ambitions to launch the biggest council house building programme seen in this country for 70 years.
To be fair, the current Labour government have already earmarked about 40 billion quid for that or something.
And there's even talk that he might just choose to nationalise a social house building company to do that.
We also know, of course, after the release of the defence investment plan, that there's at least £5 billion of the £15 billion that Keir Starmer claims to have identified for defence that will need to be found by Starmer's successor.
So £5 billion is going to have to be found down the back of the sofa pretty quickly.
He's also going to have to then oversee the billions and billions of pounds of so-called efficiency savings that the MOD is expected to find and also in a way to make up that £15 billion.
The question around where he might have to make some cuts is pretty significant.
Again, Keir Starmer's found his defence money by cancelling various road projects and other pieces of work outside London around the country.
And we are now beginning to look more closely at what the economic agenda might be for Andy Burnham.
And there's quite a lot of guesswork in doing so because he's set out his vision in quite broad brushstrokes.
But there are a number of points of reality with which he's going to come into contact pretty soon.
And by pretty soon, I mean the 20th of July, which is when I think he becomes prime minister.
I think he becomes Labour leader on the 17th, but you can't see the king over the weekend or something.
And what's he going to face? Well, he's going to face a bill for his early promises.
There's no way that he can achieve the kind of... massive overhaul and empowering of local government the way that he wants to, without a price tag being attached to that.
And if he wants local authorities to take greater control over water and energy and transport, that's going to come with a price tag.
to say nothing of house building, commendable ambitions to launch the biggest council house building programme seen in this country for 70 years.
To be fair, the current Labour government have already earmarked about 40 billion quid for that or something.
And there's even talk that he might just choose to nationalise a social house building company to do that.
We also know, of course, after the release of the defence investment plan, that there's at least £5 billion of the £15 billion that Keir Starmer claims to have identified for defence that will need to be found by Starmer's successor.
So £5 billion is going to have to be found down the back of the sofa pretty quickly.
He's also going to have to then oversee the billions and billions of pounds of so-called efficiency savings that the MOD is expected to find and also in a way to make up that £15 billion.
The question around where he might have to make some cuts is pretty significant.
Again, Keir Starmer's found his defence money by cancelling various road projects and other pieces of work outside London around the country.
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