In his first party conference speech as prime minister, Andy Burnham pledged to change the country – but warned of pain ahead as he puts his ideas into action. A panel of experts assesses his chances of success.

Risking it all for social care

Catherine Needham, Professor of Public Policy and Public Management, University of Birmingham

It was encouraging to see Andy Burnham give so much attention to social care in his speech. He even said he is personally willing to “pay a political price” to pursue a National Care Service. It looks like Labour may be suggesting something along the lines of the Scottish system, where people who are eligible for social care receive free personal care (with no means test). This was introduced in Scotland in 2002, first for people aged 65 and over and then extended to disabled people under 65 in 2019.

But from the Scottish experience, we can see that introducing free personal care into a system which remains underfunded and understaffed has had negative consequences. It has narrowed what is offered in home care to personal care, reducing support for broader needs such as cleaning, shopping and accessing the community.

It focuses on activity (so-called “time and task”) – like washing, dressing and meal preparation – rather than overall quality of life, falling well short of the aspiration of “a gloriously ordinary life”. It focuses support on people in crisis, rather than investing in prevention and early intervention to prevent, delay and reduce people’s need for social care.

Underfunded Scottish local authorities have to provide free personal care while also balancing their books. This can only be done by tightly rationing care, contributing further to the number of people whose needs are left unmet, and paying providers an unsustainably low rate.

England would do well to learn from Scotland about the risks of making care free at the point of use without taking an approach that addresses weaknesses across the whole system. Burnham must recognise the interconnectedness of key issues relating to funding, workforce and provider sustainability. His speech talked about bringing more money into social care by abandoning the pension triple lock by April 2030. Certainly, a clear funding plan will be essential to the viability of a National Care Service. But it is also important to acknowledge that a strong care ecosystem doesn’t start with the state. It starts with what enables people to flourish and lead good lives, and then considers how social care can make this possible.

Speech hinted at PM’s preference for new electoral system

Hannah Bunting, Senior Lecturer in Quantitative British Politics, University of Exeter

Electoral reform is officially back on the agenda. After 100 MPs backed a national commission on changing the UK’s voting system for general elections, Burnham revealed in his speech that he would set one up. His announcement was met with huge applause from the conference attendees.

He spoke of “political turbulence” and of being acutely aware that he was the seventh prime minister in a decade. Burnham was pointed in mentioning that Labour shouldn’t “open the door” to a “divisive government” that could gain power on “less than 30% of the vote”. It was a reference to the disproportionality of the first-past-the-post system and Reform UK’s success in the opinion polls since 2024. He seemed to recognise that it was in Labour’s interest to change the way votes are translated into seats so that the party could continue in power within a multiparty political system.

The new commission will investigate different types of voting systems and how they could change Britain’s politics. This will include how many representatives an area gets, how many votes each individual has, or the preferences they can express on a ballot paper, as well as how governments are actually formed. Burnham promised that Labour would go into the next general election with a manifesto that includes its plans for electoral reform, indicating that the commission will report its findings by the end of this parliament.

The only insight from the speech into the prime minister’s preference was his pitch for a system where “everyone’s vote counts, everyone’s voice is heard”. This would suggest something that leans much more towards proportional representation than he has advocated for previously. But perhaps it is more a hope than what reality will deliver.

There’s evidence that utilities plan could be a vote-winner

Elliot Johnson, Professor of Public Policy and Vice Chancellor’s Fellow, Northumbria University

Burnham has announced GB Grid, a new public body investing in the electricity grid, aiming to bring energy costs in line with those of other European nations within ten years. It will draw on £4 billion allocated to Great British Energy.

There’s good reason to believe voters would back this. Research has found that services have declined, investment has collapsed and costs have soared since the privatisation of energy in the 1980s and 1990s.

The prime minister is right to frame public investment in energy and net zero as vital to living standards and national security. Survey after survey of UK voters shows extremely high cross-party average approval (74/100) for public ownership. Arguments on national security and greater economic equality are particularly persuasive for the public.

Voters consistently say they would accept higher taxes for greater energy security and lower living costs. Possible job losses in carbon-intensive industries are why we need a “quadruple lock”. This would include a transition job guarantee to protect incomes, investment in infrastructure in affected communities, an education and skills development guarantee to enable retraining, and an enterprise safety net to support the use of transferable skills in establishing new businesses.

Fortune favours the bold? Political and economic challenges to Burnham’s vision

Steve Schifferes, Honorary Research Fellow, City Political Economy Research Centre, City St George’s, University of London

This speech laid out a bold new vision for Britain and pledged to tackle some of the biggest and most intractable problems facing the country today, including radical reform of social care, privatised utilities, housing and our relationship with Europe. It was a comprehensive rejection of the agenda implemented by the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, and a plea for a return to the hopeful vision of the 1945 Labour government.

Burnham’s most personal crusade is making social care free for all at the point of use. While this will eventually reduce costs to the NHS, initially to pay for all social care could cost up to £19 billion per year. Here, he is prepared to be at his most bold – proposing to partly fund it by abolishing the costly pension triple lock, which means the state pension will rise more slowly after 2030.

Burnham argues that ending the fear of losing everything if you need nursing home care will compensate elderly people for a slight reduction in the rate of increase of their pension – although he has also promised that those purely dependent on the state pension will not have to pay income tax. The triple lock is one of the shibboleths of British social policy. Burnham’s plans are already facing fierce attack by the opposition parties, who, despite their desire to cut welfare spending for working age people, are united in preserving the triple lock. If he can carry this through, it will be a clear signal of a significant change in how politics works in Britain – accepting that the long-term benefits of radical change outweigh the short-term economic and political cost.

It is less clear how his plans will boost the anaemic British economy – which is projected by the OECD to grow at only 1% next year. His suggestion that devolution of power to mayors will boost growth is as yet unproven, and his proposal to renegotiate the UK’s trade ties with Europe may be difficult to achieve. Without growth, the weaknesses in the public finances will continue to limit his options.

Given the unfavourable economic outlook, the current government plans are quite modest. Many of the measures announced – such as increasing apprentice places – are funded by cuts (“re-allocations”) from existing department budgets, which may prove unpopular. Some plans include costs that fall on the private sector (for example, legal caps on leasehold charges) which may reduce private investment in housing. Bigger changes may have to wait for next year’s spending review, which will produce a new three-year spending plan taking us up to the next election – when the economic weather might improve. .

Read more: Andy Burnham the social chameleon? Why a leader with different personas can still be authentic

Investing in young people – but where’s the money coming from?

Peter Unwin, Director, Centre for Employment Research, University of Westminster

A brief lapse in concentration and you would have missed education, training and employment for young people in the prime minister’s speech. He made valid points about a country overly focused on the university pathway, which is not a good choice for many from less advantaged backgrounds. A move towards good-quality vocational pathways from age 14 will help with the lack of electricians, carpenters and bricklayers; and of engineers and technicians; 45-day work placements between age 16 and 18 and more good apprenticeships will help with employability.

Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer did not have the common touch – but he also failed on delivery. Burnham does have the former, but can he deliver? Take the example of the Local Apprenticeship Service, which will be funded by £100 million of yet-to-emerge savings. More worrying, the delivery challenges across vocational pathways and work placements will often fall to further education, which has suffered the largest falls in per-pupil funding of any sector of the education system and receives less pupil premium funding for disadvantaged learners.

The PM suggested that we need a fundamental rethink of welfare to pay for all this. His choice is to invest in young people, but can he deliver with a party that has already rejected welfare reform? This speech marked a stark contrast to Starmer, moving towards a socialist agenda in many areas of our lives, but in education and training it is more of the same.