Andy Burnham has promised to “make a difference” to the cost of living before the end of the year, with the exact plans to be announced on his second day in office.
Speaking to journalists after he was officially appointed as prime minister on Monday, Burnham said that he was “finalising the details” of his exact policy plans, but that his government will want to move at a fast pace.
“We just want to do some things that people will feel and feel quite quickly,” he said.
“It won’t solve everything, it won’t take all of the pressure off, but it just shows the direction of travel and that we’re serious about helping them out.”
The new PM suggested that his plans could also include changes to bus fares, energy bills and even rent freezes but would not confirm the exact policies yet.
Burnham did not comment specifically on income tax changes, though he recently talked about the potential to raise the personal allowance threshold.
The current threshold sits at £12,570, meaning no income tax is paid on any earnings or pension below this amount. The threshold was frozen again for the current financial year creating a stealth tax.
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Burnham has said now that this issue “will be looked through at the Budget” but warned, “it’s difficult given the financial circumstances in which we find ourselves”.
When asked whether he would introduce a 50p top rate of tax, Burnham said it “would be just premature” to say anything on that.
Burnham also confirmed he would retain Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules, and that he will not be “taking risks with the economy”. He claimed that the funding for his plans will be “set out in our Budget”.
Another area that Burnham is passionate is social care and how it can be better funded.
He was highly critical of the approach of his “generation of politicians” for not doing the difficult thing and changing care and standards.
“I’ll be blunt with you. I would not want to leave office having done what Westminster has done, not just for 15 years,” he said.
“If I look at the National Health Service right now, what I hear from people is that corridor care is becoming the norm all year round, not just in winter time, and the standards in relation to A&E are just not achievable in terms of the 90-plus percent of people coming through in four hours.
“They say the biggest cause of that is broken social care because if there’s no barrier there at the front, how on Earth can the hospital system cope?”
Burnham expressed his concerns about the delay in discharging patients costing the NHS “billions every year”.