A summary of today's developments
-
Andy Burnham has told the first meeting of his new cabinet that they needed to examine “all possible ways” to help families struggling with high costs.
-
Andy Burnham has created a powerful new prime minister’s department taking in parts of the Cabinet Office, Treasury and housing ministry to become the “dominant driver of the UK’s economy”. He has created the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, to be led by his ally and enforcer Louise Haigh, which will oversee the No 10 operation in London, the forthcoming No 10 North in Manchester and parts of the Cabinet Office.
-
Wes Streeting said Andy Burnham’s commitment to defence “will be even more clear in the coming months” as he indicated that military budgets would rise by over £25bn to hit a Nato target in 2035. The new defence secretary said the UK would “stick by” commitments it made to its allies – a reference to a pledge to dramatically lift spending to 3.5% of GDP in 2035 from its current level of 2.6%.
-
The proportion of ministers in the newly-formed cabinet who were educated in state schools has fallen following Andy Burnham’s shake-up, according to analysis by the Sutton Trust social mobility charity. The trust calculated that 72% of the new cabinet went to state comprehensives while 24% attended private schools.
-
Yvette Cooper will have to pay NHS doctors more or risk them staging more strikes, the British Medical Association (BMA) warned the new health secretary.
-
Keir Starmer’s allies have questioned Andy Burnham’s pledge to end factional infighting after he removed or demoted more than half of the outgoing prime minister’s cabinet in his first reshuffle. “This was a deeply factional cabinet reshuffle,” one said. “The idea it was anything else is ridiculous.” Another former official said: “Becoming leader of a party involves having to promise things to a lot of different people, and you can see that in some appointments. What was surprising was the decision to get rid of so many impressive people.”
-
Andy Burnham has dismissed the prospect of “further referendums” in his calls with the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Anas Sarwar is set to quit as Scottish Labour leader to be a minister in Andy Burnham’s government, according to reports.
Sarwar is expected to be elevated to the Lords to take up a ministerial post at the revamped Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, headed by Jonathan Reynolds, according to media including the Scottish Sun.
On the frequent occasions that John Healey would travel abroad as defence secretary, he was so determined to keep working he would get the crew to tether a desk to the inside of his military aircraft so he could read his papers.
His diligence is one reason why Andy Burnham, the new prime minister, made Healey his unexpected pick for chancellor on Monday. Allies say others include their shared commitment to re-industrialisation and devolution.
After an occasionally vicious briefing war between allies of other potential candidates, the hardworking Healey is seen as a safe choice who can unite a fractured party while not scaring the markets.
But many who know him say the new chancellor is more ideologically driven than he may seem, and that Burnham will come unstuck if he treats his most senior minister as little more than a factotum.
“This is being billed as equivalent to Gordon Brown appointing Alistair Darling,” said one Labour official, referring to the former prime minister’s choice of chancellor, who was initially seen as someone who would simply do the bidding of No 10.
“But it turned out Darling had views of his own which did not always chime with Brown’s – Andy has to avoid making the same mistake.”
The prime minister told his new cabinet in its first meeting that the government will be a “cost-of-living government” and needs to examine “all possible ways” to help families struggling with high costs.
Keir Starmer’s allies have questioned Andy Burnham’s pledge to end factional infighting after he removed or demoted more than half of the outgoing prime minister’s cabinet in his first reshuffle.
“This was a deeply factional cabinet reshuffle,” one said. “The idea it was anything else is ridiculous.”
Another former official said: “Becoming leader of a party involves having to promise things to a lot of different people, and you can see that in some appointments. What was surprising was the decision to get rid of so many impressive people.”
Others are more phlegmatic, saying it was obvious that a new PM would want to bring in his own people and that the change was handled sensitively, with outgoing ministers being called directly by Burnham.
Their special advisers – who usually go when their boss does – have also been given a chance to discuss their future with Alison Phillips, Burnham’s deputy chief of staff.
The overall mood for the outgoing team has tended to be more reflective than bitter, after they had a month to digest Starmer’s decision to stand down, paving the way for a Burnham succession.
A bid by the Conservatives to debate Andy Burnham’s policy agenda in the House of Lords before peers rise for summer recess has been blocked.
The Tories had called for greater scrutiny of the new Prime Minister’s plans and accused him of “bending over backwards to avoid telling Parliament what his plans are”.
However, peers voted 173 to 234, majority 61, to reject a motion which would have seen one of Mr Burnham’s new ministers summoned to the red benches on Wednesday.
Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Smith of Basildon said the government will “welcome scrutiny”, but added: “In politics, as in life, patience is a virtue.
“This is day two of a new Prime Minister. The Government is still being formed.”
Updated
The new justice secretary Alex Norris has been urged to abandon controversial jury trial reforms, with Downing Street declining to say if Andy Burnham supported the plans.
Shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy urged him not to press ahead with the “reckless plans” put forward by his predecessor David Lammy to tackle the backlog of court cases.
Downing Street did not say if the new prime minister would remove the plans from the Courts and Tribunals Bill.
The PM’s official spokesman told reporters: “I’m not going to get into speculation over possible policy positions of every subject today.
“The Prime Minister has said before that he understands the pressure on the courts and the impact of thousands of victims waiting years for justice, and that this is not acceptable. But we will update in due course on that.”
Jordan Bardella, the president of France’s far right National Rally, is to be a keynote speaker at this year’s Reform UK annual conference.
In a sign of deepening links between the two parties, Bardella’s speech is expected to lay out how the two parties would work together in office.
Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, said: “I am pleased to welcome Jordan to our Party Conference. He represents a new generation of political leaders who are standing up for their countries, their borders and their people.
“I look forward to discussing how France and Britain can co-operate to finally stop the boats once and for all.”
Farage and Bardella met last year, discussing small boat crossings and energy policy.
Bardella had been tipped to be the National Rally’s candidate in the upcoming French presidential elections but its long-time leader, Marine Le Pen, has recently had the path cleared for her to stand after a French appeal court shorted a ban on her holding public office.
Downing Street has insisted Andy Burnham’s plan to cut VAT from electricity bills is fully funded.
The PM’s official spokesman said: “It’s fully funded and will come into effect from October the first, and it applies and is funded for this financial year.”
The Government previously said the £1.8 billion cost of the digital ID scheme over three years had been “scored” by the Office for Budget Responsibility, meaning the money would have had to be found.
The spokesman was asked about the scoring of the digital ID programme and which funding is to be shifted from it for the VAT cut, as the Office for Budget Responsibility previously said that money for digital ID still needed to be found.
Put to him that the cut was being funded through unidentified savings, he said: “What we’re doing is we’re funding this through the cancellation of the digital ID programme.
“Departments were going to have to fund the Digital ID programme through their existing budget reprioritisation.
“Departments will now direct these savings towards this.”
Chris O’Shea, group chief executive of British Gas owner Centrica, said it is “encouraging to see the new Prime Minister move quickly” to cut household energy bills after announcing an £850 million cut to VAT on electricity bills.
Andy Burnham’s conversation with Donald Trump was “extremely warm” and lasted around 20 minutes, Downing Street has said.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters: “It was an extremely warm call and I think that’s reflected in both sides’ read-outs.”
Andy Burnham insists No 10 North is “not a gimmick” and the “time for resisting devolution was over” in his first Cabinet meeting.
The PM’s spokesman said: “Turning to Number 10 North, the Prime Minister said it was not a gimmick.
“He said the time for resisting devolution was over, and it was very clear that this was the direction the Government was heading in to speed up growth and delivery.”
He said this was “the urgent principle” of this government.
Andy Burnham urged his Cabinet to think every day about how to ease the pressure on household budgets for the public.
In a readout of the first Cabinet meeting, the PM’s official spokesman said: “Today’s cabinet reflected a sense of a united team, a new sense of energy, and a second chance at a first impression.”
He said Burnham opened by congratulating his Cabinet and telling them they were a “good team from all backgrounds that reflected the country they served”, adding it was vital the cabinet now “pulled together” in the same direction.
“The Prime Minister said people across Britain were finding life hard, and ministers should think every day about what they could do to take a little bit of pressure off. The Prime Minister added that this Government needed to be a cost-of-living one. He said today’s announcement showed the Government was prepared to reprioritise to reduce the pressure and deliver on tackling the cost of living.
“The Chancellor then reiterated that reprioritisation would allow the Government to make life more affordable for people, whilst maintaining fiscal discipline.”
The PM added said it was important the public could see the steps being taken towards his 10-year vision.
Ed Miliband’s first diplomatic call as foreign secretary was with his Ukrainian counterpart Andrii Sybiha.
He wrote on X: “I underlined the UK’s steadfast and resolute commitment to the people of Ukraine.”
The former Labour leader added: “Ukraine is on the frontline of the fight for the values of freedom and democracy in Europe.”
Sybiha, Kyiv’s acting minister of foreign affairs, wrote on social media that he congratulated Mr Miliband on his new role “and thanked the United Kingdom for its steadfast support for Ukraine since the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, including military, energy, humanitarian, economic and sanctions assistance”.
Sybiha added: “I briefed my colleague on the latest developments on the battlefield and thanked him for his solidarity following Russia’s latest massive attack on Kyiv. We discussed further strengthening our cooperation, continued military assistance, support for Ukraine’s energy sector ahead of winter, increasing pressure on Russia.
“I invited Foreign Secretary Miliband to visit Ukraine. I wished him and his team every success in their important work and look forward to working closely together to further strengthen the vital Ukraine–UK partnership.”
Newly appointed chancellor says he is 'burning with a passion' for the Treasury
John Healey has said he is “burning with a passion” for the Treasury as he addressed staff for the first time since his surprise (at least to the media) appointment as chancellor.
“I’m still burning with a passion about this institution as a force for stability, for security, for growth, a force for a successful Britain, and a successful Britain now in a much tougher world”, Healey, who was a minister in the Treasury for five years between 2002 and 2007, said.
The new chancellor listed his five priorities, as fiscal discipline, growth in every postcode, backing Britain in procurement, wealth creation and the cost of living.
“This is the way that we start to build a new economy. This is the way that we start to build new hope,” he said. “This is the way that we start to advance working people in this country.”
Updated
Nigel Farage has claimed he was “getting under the skin” of Andy Burnham, linking the new prime minister’s decision to speak without a lectern on his arrival at Downing Street to Reform’s chastisement of him for having to rely on notes in past speeches.
Farage was speaking at a rally in Norfolk earlier today where he made fresh calls for a general election, saying the new prime minister “has no mandate whatsoever” to meet his promise of “the biggest changes in 40 years” to UK politics.
The Reform UK leader arrived by helicopter at Kimberley Hall, an historic estate outside the town of Wymondham, where party faithful gathered to celebrate the election of Colin Sutton, a high profile retired detective, as Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Norfolk.
Farage, who quit as the MP for Clacton to trigger a byelection, which he is standing in, said VAT-free electricity bills – one of the first policies announced by Burnham – will fail to “address the real issue of the cost of living”, particularly in homes heated using oil or gas.
“If you add up all of the green levies, the renewable obligation certificates and I could go on, if you got rid of all of those, you’d reduce household bills by £200 per household, not the £45 offered by Burnham this morning.”
Farage claimed that Reform were “getting under the skin” of Burnham but the Reform leader went on to complain about “abuse” he had recently received in the press – an apparent reference to investigations into the £5m gift which he received from crypto billionare Christopher Harborne and the role of convicted criminal George Cottrell in Farage’s entourage.
“Given the abuse that I have had in the lately and some of my friends and colleagues have had in the press I wonder whether the effective deputy prime minister Louise Haigh will be address in every single BBC broadcast and newspaper article as convicted fraudster Louise Haigh,” he asked, referring to the Labour MP, who pleaded guilty to lying that her work mobile phone had been stolen in 2013.
Updated
Burnham's commitment to defence 'will be even clearer in the coming months', Streeting says
Wes Streeting said that Andy Burnham’s commitment to defence “will be even more clear in the coming months” as he indicated that military budgets would rise by over £25bn to hit a Nato target in 2035.
The new defence secretary said the UK would “stick by” commitments it made to its allies – a reference to a pledge to dramatically lift spending to 3.5% of GDP in 2035 from its current level of 2.6%.
Streeting, appearing at a press conference alongside Japanese, Italian and Canadian counterparts, also welcomed the surprise appointment of former defence secretary John Healey to the Treasury by the new prime minister.
Healey had quit his previous role last month in a row with former prime minister Keir Starmer amid a failure to agree a pathway to the 3.5% goal. “I certainly feel like we have a firm friend in his majesty’s Treasury,” Streeting said.
The new defence secretary added that the military has “an enormous contribution” to make to Burnham’s vision of industrialisation in the UK but emphasised the Ministry of Defence had to demonstrate that taxpayer’s money was well spent.
That was necessary “to show that we understand the sacrifices that involves from other government departments” – implying they may be forced to take real term spending cuts to meet the ultimate spending goal.
Streeting was speaking at an event in which the UK, Japan, and Italy welcomed Canada as an observer to the Global Combat Aircraft Programme (Gcap) next generation fighter joint venture. The UK has committed to spend £8.6bn on Gcap over the next four years.
Updated
The Fire Brigades Union (FBU) has just posted on X to urge the new government to convene a “National Wildfire Summit” to build up “national resilience”. “We need 5,000 more firefighters now,” the FBU wrote.
As my colleagues note in this story, Steve Wright, the general secretary of the FBU, said crews had been stretched by staffing cuts – with 12,000 fewer firefighters in the UK today than in 2010 – that delayed them from getting to incidents, resulting in more fires that grow out of control.
Severe wildfires are becoming more frequent in the UK, with the human-induced climate crisis causing extended periods of hot and dry weather, as we have seen in recent weeks.
The FBU wrote:
The FBU believes that the recent experience of wildfires urgently requires a strategic reset and that a National Wildfire Summit would be the ideal vehicle to accelerate this process.
A summit could bring together central government, fire and rescue services, the FBU, fire employers, devolved administrations, environmental agencies, farmers, local government, academics and other relevant stakeholders to develop a genuinely UK-wide approach.
The boss of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, has warned Andy Burnham against raising tax charges on banks, suggesting it could threaten plans to build its £3bn headquarters in London and drive investment away from Britain.
The chief executive of the world’s biggest bank, who has a track record of criticising the UK’s bank tax surcharge, does not want to see the UK’s new prime minister targeting the banking industry to raise extra revenue.
“I mean, it may sound great, ‘tax the banks’, but it’s $5bn that my shareholders paid on that extra tax,” said Dimon on the Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, in an interview recorded last week and released on Tuesday. “I just think things like that have adverse consequences.”
Banks in the UK pay a 28% corporation tax rate, higher than the standard 25%, as well as a separate levy on their UK balance sheets.
“I would be very cautious if I was a government thinking that penalising any company out of the ordinary is a good thing for that country,” Dimon said. “I always thought [the UK bank levy] was wrong.
“JP Morgan did not damage the UK and I called the chancellor at the time. [We] did not damage the UK. We’re a great citizen there. We hire people there. We want to be bigger there.” You can read the full story here:
The public opinion consultancy Deltapoll has a new poll out based on the responses of 2,027 British adults who were asked about their voting intention between 17 and 20 July.
The poll shows that Labour are up eight points, in comparison to a previous poll conducted between 12 and 15 June, and are now tying with Reform at 28%.
Andy Burnham was elected leader of the Labour party on 17 July, indicating that he is contributing to Labour’s improved fortunes in the latest Deltapoll survey.
Updated
Prime minister Andy Burnham hosting his first Cabinet meeting at 10 Downing Street this afternoon.
Updated
The new chancellor John Healey also spoke at the cabinet meeting.
He told his colleagues that the cut to VAT on electricity bills “won’t solve the cost of living but it does indicate that we are offering a bit of help… we are offering a bit of hope”.
Healey paid tribute to his predecessor Rachel Reeves and the previous cabinet for their financial discipline and said he wants to build on that.
Burnham sums up by saying his government will “always show how we are going to pay for it” before asking the cameras to leave the meeting.
Burnham also said he would improve relations between minister and civil servant in his first cabinet meeting.
The prime minister said the two points on the agenda for the gathering were the “mission purpose of this government and standards”.
He said:
The two are linked because we will only deliver for people and make hope feel real for people if we are pulling ourselves together in the same direction and we have a really positive working relationship, a sense of one team.
He said he had spoken to cabinet secretary Antonia Romeo, who was sitting beside him, about wanting to “set the tone at the top in relation to our relationship with our colleagues in the civil service,” and “making that feel like it’s a one-team approach… respecting each other”.
Updated
Burnham vowed to always “show how we’re going to pay” for policies.
The new prime minister told his cabinet “we will seek to do more” with plans to be set out “over the coming days”.
He added:
But always we will show how we are going to pay for it, what we are reprioritising. That will be a theme that we will always come back to.
Updated
Burnham urges ministers to examine 'all possible ways' to help reduce cost-of-living pressures in first cabinet meeting
Andy Burnham has told the first meeting of his new cabinet that they needed to examine “all possible ways” to help families struggling with high costs.
After arriving to applause, he said:
What can we do just to take that little bit of pressure off people’s shoulders, just to give them that little extra sense that help is coming so that they can have that bit of hope that things are getting better. And that’s the mission that we’ve got to set ourselves together.
He asked his colleagues to look into what their department could do to ease cost-of-living pressures, both “big and small”. “We need to be a cost-of-living government, getting that cost of living down, looking at all possible ways of doing that.”
This all sounds very vague at the moment but we are expecting some more concrete policy announcements over the next few days.
The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, said that Andy Burnham has arrived in No 10 “without a mandate from the British people” as he reiterated his calls for the new prime minister to call a general election.
Speaking at a Reform UK rally in Norfolk, Farage said he knew that following May’s elections in England, Scotland and Wales that Keir Starmer would leave office after Labour’s poor performance in the polls.
“And he’s gone and we did it – we did it,” Farage said, as he appeared to take credit for Starmer’s departure. Turning his attention to Burnham, Farage added:
This man has no mandate whatsoever. He didn’t stand on the 2024 general election manifesto.
You cannot make the ‘biggest changes’ in British politics in 40 years without a mandate from the British people.
And it would be only decent, right and proper to call a general election on that issue and to do it now.
Proportion of state-school educated ministers in cabinet has fallen since Burnham reshuffle, analysis shows
The proportion of ministers in the newly-formed cabinet who were educated in state schools has fallen following Andy Burnham’s shake-up, according to analysis by the Sutton Trust social mobility charity.
As ministers started to arrive at No 10 for their first cabinet meeting, the trust calculated that 72% of the new cabinet went to state comprehensives while 24% attended private schools.
By comparison, in Keir Starmer’s 2024 cabinet just 8% of ministers were educated privately, making it the most comprehensively educated on record, according to the Sutton Trust. For context 7% of the general population attend private schools.
Not only are there more privately-educated ministers today, more of them went to elite universities. The trust says 55% of Burnham’s cabinet attended either Oxford or Cambridge, up from 38% in Starmer’s cabinet.
The new prime minister himself read English at Cambridge, a break from political tradition which has seen every prime minister who attended an English university since 1937 go to Oxford, including Starmer as a post-graduate.
Researchers also looked for the first time at where in the country ministers were educated and found a geographical shift in Burnham’s cabinet, with 41% educated in the North, compared to previous cabinets led by Rishi Sunak (19%) and Keir Starmer (31%).
Updated
The appointment of Chris Bryant as secretary of state has jolted Northern Ireland, with all sides scrambling to find out who he is and what he heralds.
The region’s political parties had expected Andy Burnham to keep Hilary Benn in the job given his record of calm stewardship through two years of acrimony and polarisation at Stormont.
But on Monday the prime minister sacked Benn – who had helped to reset relations with Dublin after the Tory-era Brexit dramas – and named the MP for Rhondda and Ogmore as his successor.
Politicians from both sides of the border paid tribute to Benn’s commitment and integrity. He pledged to support the government from the backbenches and wished Bryant well.
The new secretary-of-state faces a daunting in-tray. He must shepherd legislation on the Troubles’ legacy – a fraught issue that divides victims, survivors and veterans’ groups – through Westminster.
He must also hammer out a budget deal with an executive which claims penury but is accused of fiscal incontinence, respond to nationalist calls for a referendum on Irish unification and adjudicate on attempts to reform power-sharing rules that are blamed for Stormont’s dysfunction, a task made harder by next year’s assembly elections.
Controversies on the Irish language, funding for the Casement stadium in west Belfast and the Irish government’s record during the Troubles, including the 1998 Omagh bombing, complete the minefield.
Ministers arrive for Andy Burnham's first cabinet meeting
Ministers are arriving at Downing Street for the new prime minister’s first cabinet meeting, which is due to commence shortly.
Updated
Ollie Cole, a political producer at Times Radio, has compiled a list of the times the new cabinet appointments were disclosed online yesterday in comparison to when the member was seen shaking hands with the new prime minister.
Updated
The Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, has looked at how the international media has covered Andy Burnham on his entry into 10 Downing Street as Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade. Here is an interesting extract from his story:
Beyond the diplomatic platitudes, however, media coverage focused on Burnham’s regional persona – and the huge task awaiting him. France’s Public Sénat said the new prime minister came from “the working class of the north of England”.
He had managed to “build an image as an ‘everyman’, appearing without a tie, very often in a T-shirt”, the political TV channel said on its website, standing out as “a politician on the ground, close to everyday concerns”.
Italy’s Corriere della Sera said the UK was experiencing “profound unease, instability and social resentment” and “needs a push” forward, but Burnham’s nationalisation, state intervention and reindustrialisation plans suggested he saw the past as a model.
The UK “appears incapable of imagining and planning for the future and prefers to take refuge in a backward-looking Eden”, it argued, even though the pre-Thatcher years were marked by “energy rationing, rubbish in the streets and IMF bailouts”.
The Irish Times noted that Burnham may be “a breath of fresh air” but the challenges that brought down Starmer – “a budget unable to meet desperately needed demand in defence, housing, welfare, care for the aged, and training for the young” – remained.
Updated
Pay NHS doctors more or risk further strikes, BMA warns new health secretary
Yvette Cooper will have to pay NHS doctors more or risk them staging more strikes, the British Medical Association (BMA) has warned the new health secretary.
Cooper will have to find more money to give consultant (senior hospital) doctors in England a pay rise bigger than the 3.5% they have already received this year or they may strike, BMA council deputy chair Dr Emma Runswick said.
Consultants, who are already paid an average of £152,000, recently voted to take industrial action unless their pay was improved.
GPs and specialist, associate specialist and specialty doctors are also at loggerheads with the government, over issues including pay, workload and career progression. And resident – formerly junior - doctors could still strike again, Runswick added.
“As secretary of state she has an opportunity to rest relations with the NHS workforce, which will require action to reverse both pay erosion and the undermining of the profession, which has seen doctors forced onto the picket line in recent years”, said Runwick, responding to Cooper’s move last night to the department of health and social care from her role as foreign secretary.
“We still have three groups of doctors in England in dispute with the government, and so solving these must be at the top of her in-tray,” she said.
“Consultants now have a mandate to strike, so reaching a solution that both avoids the need for senior hospital doctors to take industrial action in the short term, and safeguards the profession and patient care going forward, must be a priority.
“While the recent deal has been accepted by resident doctors in England the government must not lose focus on implementing it, or it faces further dispute.” The result of the consultants’ ballot means that they can legally take strike action over the next year.
Updated
There has been some more reaction to Andy Burnham’s first major policy announcement – the £850 million tax cut on electricity bills (see this post for more details).
The Green party leader, Zack Polanski, said the move was a “start” but stressed that it “won’t nearly” be enough for the millions of families struggling with high energy bills who face “another tough winter”. “We need a robust energy price cap to protect people from the ongoing fall out from Trump’s illegal war in Iran,” Polanski said.
Meanwhile, the Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, said she welcomes the move but questioned how the government will fund all of Burnham’s new policies without raising taxes or borrowing more.
“It’s only one day into Burnham’s government and already the explanations are falling apart,” she wrote in a post on X.
“You can’t use the funding from an unfunded programme to pay for cheaper bills,” she said in reference to the digital ID scheme the new government says it is scrapping to fund the VAT cut on electricity bills. Badenoch said her party’s “cheap power plan” – funded by “scrapping net zero policies” and North sea drilling – will cut family energy bills by £200. “John Healey should take a look at it and steal our ideas,” she wrote.
Burnham dismisses prospect of 'further referendums' in calls with leaders of devolved administrations
Andy Burnham has dismissed the prospect of “further referendums” in his calls with the leaders of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
A Downing Street spokesperson said:
The prime minister said he was serious about creating a new politics – rooted in finding common ground based on collaborative, practical and pragmatic relations with the heads of the devolved governments.
Working in partnership, the prime minister said together they could drive deeper devolution to all parts of the United Kingdom to get growth going.
The prime minister added he was focused on practical measures, not constitutional changes like further referendums, to give families more breathing room by helping them with the cost of living, which he had done today by helping millions of households with their energy bills.
The prime minister said he looked forward to meeting with the heads of the devolved governments soon and visiting Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland shortly.
Andy Burnham has appointed a record number of women to the cabinet. Of the 23 full members of the cabinet, including the prime minister, 12 are women and 11 are men.
This is up from 10 women and 13 men in Keir Starmer’s final cabinet. The previous record was 11 women out of 22 full members, set by Starmer’s first cabinet in July 2024.
Shares in defence companies have risen sharply after Andy Burnham appointed John Healey as chancellor, with investors hoping the former defence secretary will use his new position to increase defence spending. You can follow all of the latest business news in our live blog here:
Andy Burnham has phoned Northern Ireland’s first minister, Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, and the deputy first minister, Emma Little Pengelly, following the change in secretary of state from Hilary Benn to former trade minister Chris Bryant.
He has also phoned the first ministers of Wales and Scotland, Rhun ap Iorwerth and John Swinney, outlining his seriousness about “creating a new politics - rooted in finding “common ground” and collaboration with the devolved governments.
A spokesperson for Burnham said together they could “drive deeper devolution” to help growth to all postcodes in the UK.
Bryant, a former trade minister and Anglican priest, will be tasked with taking forward the “Troubles bill”, which will replace the Legacy Act brought in by the Conservatives in 2023 and opposed by all five main Northern Ireland parties.
He will also face concerns among unionists who fear a Nigel Farage led UK government in three years time will fuel Sinn Fein calls for a border poll on a united Ireland.
Politicians in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales have already expressed concern that a “nationalist rump” in England could lead to the break up of the UK.
Updated
António Costa, the president of the European council, said in a post on X that he held a “good” phone call with Andy Burnham last night, in which he said they agreed to “further strengthen” EU-UK relations and continue to cooperate to support Ukraine.
He said there was also discussion about “common geopolitical challenges facing Europe”, which could be a reference to many things, including energy prices soaring due to the US-Israel war on Iran, Europe’s trading and security relationship with Washington, the future of Nato, the continent facing a wave of hybrid warfare, driven by Russia, or the surge of national populism and backlash against immigration.
Burnham declared his support for Ukraine, Nato and the UK’s nuclear deterrent in a recent Opinion piece for The Times in which he also said Britain’s relationship with the US will be “critical” – both in terms of defence and security. He seems to be sticking very closely to Keir Starmer in terms of these foreign policy issues, but it remains to be seen what his wider views are.
The new foreign secretary, Ed Milliband, could take a stronger stance against Israel for its continuing assault on Gaza, widely seen as a genocide, and illegal settlement expansion in the West Bank, as well edging the UK on a pathway towards restoring foreign aid after heavy cuts under Starmer’s government.
Updated
Russian warship carries out rare live-fire exercise 45 miles off UK coast
A Russian warship conducted a rare live-fire exercise in the Channel 45 miles south of Plymouth on Monday, the day Andy Burnham was appointed as prime minister.
The Neustrashimy suddenly announced it intended to fire its guns and requested that a British warship, which had been tracking it, retreat to a safe distance.
The patrol vessel HMS Tyne repositioned, allowing the Russian frigate to conduct a 30-minute firing drill at 9.30am in international waters to the south of the UK.
Russian warships have been sailing around British waters for much of 2026. Last month another frigate, the Admiral Grigorovich, fired warning shots within a few hundred metres of a couple on a British pleasure yacht, south of the Isle of Wight.
You can read the full story here:
PM to announce plans to slash hospitality business rates by 20% 'within days' - report
Huffpost UK is reporting that Andy Burnham will reveal plans to reduce business rates for the hospitality sector by 20% within days. It also reports that a £2 cap on bus fares is to be announced as soon as tomorrow.
During the Makerfield byelection campaign last month, Burnham acknowledged criticism of the government’s policies towards small businesses, pledging help on business rates.
As the Guardian’s senior political correspondent, Peter Walker, explains in this story, under Burnham’s plan, pubs, clubs and music venues would receive a 20% cut next year, while smaller, independent hospitality, leisure and retail companies would have the threshold for paying business rates raised for the first time since 2017, taking many outside the scope of the tax. A taper system would avoid a payments cliff edge.
Hamish Falconer, who takes over from Nick Thomas-Symonds as minister for intergovernmental relations and European relations, brings solid international experience to his new role.
He will be charged with continuing the reset of relations with the EU but will have to take a crash course in some really technical subjects including the sanitary and phytosanitary agreement aimed at reducing Brexit barriers for food exporters and the electricity trading systems.
The 40-year-old former diplomat, who worked in the foreign office and the department for international aid previously, was elected an MP in 2024 and was immediately marked out for a new career, appointed under secretary of state for the middle east and north Africa.
Falconer is the MP for Lincoln and son of Labour grandee and peer Charlie Falconer, who served in Tony Blair’s government. He worked for the foreign office for 10 years, focusing on national security, terrorism and hostage recovery, particularly in Afghanistan.
He also had a stint at the UK’s National Crime Agency in Pakistan and south Sudan, working on human trafficking investigations.
Thomas Byrne, the Europe minister in Ireland, which is the current holder of the EU’s rotating presidency, said he looked forward to “working closely” with Falconer.
Updated
The new business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, defended the make-up of the cabinet, which has a majority of members based in the north of England, with five from Greater Manchester.
Asked if there was a risk of a north-south divide, Reynolds, the MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Greater Manchester, told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “No, there isn’t.”
“I don’t want to get touchy about it, but I can’t remember previous occasions where people have objected to too many people from a different part of the country being in there,” he said.
Andy Burnham, the Makerfield MP and former mayor of Greater Manchester, is making it his political mission statement as PM to devolve power across the UK, ensure growth in “every postcode” and, perhaps in an attempt to win back Labour voters from Reform, to target underinvested in small towns and cities that have struggled after the closure of factories.
While this may be popular with many voters, some experts warn that fetishising the industrial past is not the route to modern economic prosperity and devolution in itself is not a miracle cure, as my colleague Richard Partington notes in this story.
Updated
There is a lot of news to digest this morning. Andy Burnham made changes to the cabinet throughout the day and into the night in order to mark a shift in policy direction from his deeply unpopular predecessor. Helpfully, my colleagues Rowena Mason and Peter Walker have done a round up of whose in and whose out, with some insightful details on their careers and, for those who still have jobs, what challenges they will face in their briefs:
Updated
Andy Burnham promised to end rough sleeping in England in his first pledge as prime minister, allocating an additional £340m over three years as he seeks to replicate the homelessness schemes he rolled out in Greater Manchester.
Speaking in front of Downing Street immediately after becoming prime minister on Monday, Burnham said he would try to get people off the streets “at the earliest opportunity”.
The announcement was welcomed by homelessness campaigners, who say the pledge can be met with enough money and political will.
The prime minister’s critics, however, greeted the promise with scepticism, pointing out that despite having set out a similar goal as Greater Manchester mayor, Burnham had overseen four years of rising street homelessness.
Officials said the government would now put an extra £340m into its homelessness strategy – equivalent to £113m a year – which would come from unused parts of the housing department’s budget.
The newly appointed business secretary, Jonathan Reynolds, has defended the policy, declaring the cut to VAT on electricity bills “a statement of priorities”.
Responding to Darren Jones’s claim that the cut remained unfunded, Reynolds told Radio 4’s Today programme:
They are part of the government’s pressure, it is a legitimate decision to remove that pressure and instead use the allocation of resources … It’s a straightforward switch spend, it’s the right decision to make, and one that will be made by the British people.
Burnham's VAT cut policy 'coming apart at the seams' already, Lib Dems say
In our opening post we mentioned criticism of the tax cut announcement on household electricity bills from the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, who has told Times Radio that the policy is “coming apart at the seams” already.
“It’s a bit confusing isn’t it? And I don’t think it’s the best way to help people with their bills,” Davey added.
He said his party was calling for an “essential energy guarantee”, which the Lib Dems claim will cut energy bills by giving every household an essential amount of energy, equal to 50% of typical consumption, at a “discounted rate”.
Davey calls for Burnham to hold a budget as soon as possible so the figures can come under proper scrutiny. Sticking to the commitments not to raise the main rates of income tax, national insurance or VAT rule out the most obvious ways to raise revenue.
Also speaking on Times Radio, the shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, said that the Office for Budget Responsibility said last year that the digital ID card scheme had not been funded. He said: “They (the OBR) literally said that, so you can’t fund a tax cut… with savings from a programme that itself wasn’t funded.”
Burnham cuts tax on electricity bills in first major policy announcement as PM
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of UK politics. Andy Burnham has announced an £850m tax cut on electricity bills to help ease cost of living pressures in his first significant policy announcement as prime minister. It means that electricity bills will be reduced by an average of £45 a year from October.
Downing Street said the move will be partly funded by scrapping Keir Starmer’s digital ID scheme, which would have cost an estimated £1.8bn over three years. Because of Brexit, EU VAT rates apply on electricity bills in Northern Ireland so the cut will not apply there. Instead the Stormont executive will be given funding to implement an equivalent level of support. Announcing the policy, Burnham said:
I said I wanted to give people breathing space, and that’s what I’m announcing on my second day as prime minister. We’re taking immediate action to cut taxes on energy bills, put more money in people’s pockets and bring back hope.
The newly appointed chancellor, John Healey, said the cut will “bring down inflation while supporting households in every postcode”, signalling the political direction of the new cabinet. While welcomed as a positive initial step to help people save money off their bills, the policy has been criticised, including by Lib Dem leader Ed Davey, for not going far enough.
In an extraordinary intervention this morning, Darren Jones, Starmer’s former chief secretary, said the money had not been set aside for the digital ID scheme, which Burnham says will pay for the VAT tax cut. Jones, who was sacked as the Dunchy of Lancaster, wrote in an X post:
Good news that VAT will be cut on electricity bills. It’s a simple way for families to save a few quid, and to mechanically help to keep inflation that little bit lower. But the DigitalID program was unfunded. The government will have to set out how it will pay for its new policies at the budget.
Burnham will chair his first cabinet meeting at 12.30pm after having removed Starmer loyalists from it yesterday. The ministers to lose their jobs included Rachel Reeves, David Lammy, Darren Jones, Steve Reed, Peter Kyle, Richard Hermer, Liz Kendall, Jo Stevens and Hilary Benn. But Reeves was understood to have turned down another job to return to the backbenches. We will bring you the latest throughout the day, which promises to be a busy one. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the members of the new cabinet:
-
Chancellor: John Healey
-
Foreign secretary: Ed Miliband
-
Home secretary: Shabana Mahmood
-
Health secretary: Yvette Cooper
-
Work and pensions secretary: Pat McFadden
-
Housing secretary: Angela Rayner
-
Business secretary: Jonathan Reynolds
-
Education secretary: Lucy Powell
-
Equalities minister: Bridget Phillipson
-
Culture secretary: Lisa Nandy
-
Defence secretary: Wes Streeting
-
Justice secretary: Alex Norris
-
Environment secretary: Angela Eagle
-
Energy secretary: Miatta Fahnbulleh
-
Scottish secretary: Douglas Alexander
-
Welsh secretary: Stephen Kinnock
-
Northern Ireland secretary: Chris Bryant
-
Transport secretary: Heidi Alexander
-
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: Louise Haigh
Updated
