Andy Burnham vs. the OBR

That’s *a lot* of spending commitments for day one

Andy Burnham (Credit: Lauren Hurley / No 10 Downing Street)

There are a couple of ways to view the appointment of John Healey as chancellor of the exchequer. The first is to marvel at team Burnham’s ability to avoid leaks on the question of greatest intrigue surrounding the new administration. The second is to observe that reshuffles¹ are fundamentally unstable and unpredictable beasts, even for prime ministers at the height of their power.

Perhaps the textbook case in terms of how not to do it was Tony Blair’s June 2003 reshuffle, which saw the Lord Chancellor fiasco and sowed genuine confusion among ministers over whether they had been sacked or not, alongside the usual machinery of government changes that hurt the Institute for Government’s feelings.

Much like Shabana Mahmood, Healey’s primary advantage lies in who he is not: Ed Miliband, the new foreign secretary². But as with several of Andy Burnham’s first moves, it comes with a significant price tag.

A Labour defence secretary turned chancellor called Healey

You will no doubt recall that it was Healey’s resignation from defence over funding for the armed forces that did such damage to the already listing Starmer premiership. Last month, Healey said the Defence Investment Plan, at an additional £13.5bn, fell “well short of what is required for defence and the country at this dangerous time.” He is also on record as saying the UK should be spending 3% of GDP on defence by 2030, another costly spending commitment, at an extra £17.3bn a year by 2029-30.

Then there is Britain’s “broken” social care system. Burnham has suggested it ought to operate “on the NHS principle”, at an estimated cost of £18bn a year. Throw in the commitment to end rough sleeping, the promise to remove VAT from household energy bills (repeating past mistakes whereby the more you spend, the more you save), a pledge to commence the “biggest council housebuilding programme since the postwar period”, possible caps to bus fares and rent freezes, support for pubs and the high street and… crikey.