Work and pensions secretary says the current system is flawed because it consigns too many people to a life on benefits when they would be better off working
Q: Will you do social care reform before the next election in 2029?
Burnham said he would stick to the Labour manifesto, and its commitments on tax (which rule out rises in income tax, national insurance or VAT).
Q: But what about a special, new tax to fund social care?
Trust is really important to me here. I don’t think you can reform this system without it, without consensus.
So I’m saying to you that I will develop a very clear plan, and I will put that plan to the public at a general election.
That will be where the plan gets tested. And people will then be able to decide.
And I am prepared to put myself in that position, recognising that it might be difficult or unpopular with some, but that is the way to do it, to get that endorsement and then introduce the system in the next parliament. Because the the backing of people for this really matters.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Wes Streeting has also claimed that, for the first time in almost 30 years, he has given up wanting to be Labour leader.
I am, for the first time since I was probably about 15 years old, not running to be leader of the Labour Party, and it’s quite a liberating position to be in.
Asked if that was just the case “for now”, he said: “No, that ship has sailed.”
Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Wes Streeting has appealed to colleagues who served alongside him in Keir Starmer’s cabinet not to let disappointments stoke fresh splits in the Labour party. “I can understand emotionally that for lots of my colleagues who were most closely involved in Keir’s leadership and political project, that they will be feeling the pain of that project ending most acutely,” the defence secretary told a fringe event organised by the Fabians at the Labour conference. He went on:
But one thing we can’t do is allow yesterday’s disappointments to become today’s divisions and we have to pull together as a party.
That doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything all the time or shut down debate. I think Andy wants a kind of ecumenical or pluralistic party where we have debate.
But sometimes it does mean thinking when on a TV programme or giving a radio interview or a magazine interview ‘Are those comments going to help or hinder the Labour party as we fight Reform or the Conservatives?’
Streeting was asked if he was referring to comments recently such as those by Darren Jones, the former Treasury chief secretary, who claimed in an interview with the New Statesman that he had been offered a “deal” to resign from that role in return for a future post under Andy Burnham.
“I didn’t have anyone particularly in mind,” said Streeting.
Last year the Norwegian Labour party secured a second term in office after seeing off a surge of support for the populist right.
And so it is not hard to see why Andy Burnham thought his Norwegian counterpart, Jonas Gahr Støre, might be a good person to address the Labour conference.
In his speech, Støre said in his first term in office, after Russia invaded Ukraine and energy prices started going up, his government started losing support as voters increasingly viewed it as out of touch.
And I came to the simple conclusion, hard as it may be, we have to get closer to that dinner table.
If people were talking about their electricity bill, we could not answer with a lecture about how electricity markets work.
And that came after eight years in which people had seen barely any real wage growth.
So as prime minister, I set a simple goal for the government: we have to do what it takes so that people get better off and they can feel it.
Electricity was an obvious place to start.
Because in Norway, most homes are heated with electricity – and winters are cold.
Families had begun to follow prices hour by hour, some even putting on the washing machine at night when electricity was cheapest.
So we introduced what we call the Norway Price: every household can now choose a fixed national electricity price, and they can plan on it.
In Norway, most young children go to kindergarten before they start school.
But for years, families had seen the price go up and up.
So when we decided to put household finances first, children and childcare was another of the places we chose to act.
And every year Labour has been in government; we have cut the maximum price for kindergarten.
Today, just to compare, a full-time place costs about £95 a month.
And for a family with one child, that is around £2,500 less a year than they would have paid if the old price had simply continued.
And another benefit - participation of children in kindergartens from all walks of society is significantly up.
Støre said that was high he approved of Burnham saying he wanted to give people “breathing space” with the cost of living when he became PM.
Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, has told Labour activists they should not defend the benefits system “status quo”.
In his speech to the conference, he said the current system was flawed because it consigned too many people to a life on benefits when they would be better off working.
He also criticised the rightwing parties demanding cuts to benefits paid to working-age young people for dismissing people in this group as “a generation of snowflakes and shirkers”. He said:
What kind of patriotism is it that attacks your own younger generation? Our belief in our country says we will lift you up and give you a chance, we won’t blame you for the challenges you face.
McFadden said Labour cherished the welfare state because it saw it as “the mark not only of a decent society but a strong one” that help was there for those who need it.
But the current system is flawed, he said.
A young person who signs on for sickness benefits when they are twenty years old is now more likely to reach the age of thirty and still be on them than to have held down a steady job in any one of the intervening years.
A young person under twenty-five on the health element of universal credit is now less likely to find work than someone over fifty-five on the very same benefit.
And worst of all a young person left out of work is far more likely to die before their time than the friends they sat beside in school.
We should not accept it. We have to change it.
Conference, this status quo is not a system around which to circle the wagons. It’s a system to change so that we can give a chance to life for the people it too often signs off and writes off.
McFadden said the government should not just aspire to give people enough money to keep them alive.
Our ambition must be higher than that. We don’t just owe people an income. We owe them a future too and that is what the system should be built around.
McFadden said the government would soon get reports from Alan Milburn about Neets (young people not in education, employment and training) and from Stephen Timms about the personal independence payment (Pip) disability benefit. When those were out, it would propose “a new system focussed on opportunity”, he said.
McFadden also confirmed the plan announced earlier (see 8.55am) to guarantee jobs for out-of-work young people with disabilities and health conditions.
Labour divisions over whether or not the party should rejoin the EU have opened up at conference today.
In an interview with the i, Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, said the government should start making the case for rejoining now. He said:
We’ve got to start the work now … You can’t, a week before a general election, pull out of a hat this rabbit of a manifesto and say we’re going to rejoin in six weeks’ time.
The heavy lifting, the pitch rolling must be done now, explaining to the country the disbenefits of being outside the European Union and the benefits of being part of this family.
Khan has already said the UK should rejoin the single market and the customs unions now, with a view to rejoining the EU fully, without another referendum, if it wins the next election.
In an interview with Sky News, asked to respond to Khan’s latest comment, Sharon Graham, the Unite general secretary said the government should not reverse Brexit. She said:
I think the reality about the EU is that … we need to be sure that we’re keeping to what the British people said. The British people voted for Brexit. I think if we’re going down a road of trying to undo that, I think that will be seen as a problem.
As mentioned earlier, More in Common has a new MRP poll out today. The results are here.
The Sunday Times columnist Robert Colvile has an interesting take on the findings. He says:
In the last week, we’ve had three separate MRPs (big, constituency-level projections) from @YouGov, @Survation and @Moreincommon_. And as I say in my column today, they’re all shouting the same story at us: British politics is becoming regional, not national. Let me explain...
This is the @YouGov map, though the others look very similar. What’s glaringly apparent is that we won’t have one election battle, but (at least) five. Eg:
This becomes even clearer when we look at how many seats each party is expected to win in each region. It also illustrates why the right gets fewer seats on the same vote share - because Con and Ref are going head to head a lot more than Lab and Lib
There is more in Colvile’s social media thread here.
Andy Burnham has issued a statement on social media about the arrest of five men on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences near an RAF base used in US attacks against Iran.
I know today’s incident near RAF Fairford will be deeply concerning for local residents and for many people following developments across the country.
My thanks go to Gloucestershire Police, Counter Terrorism Policing, our Armed Forces and all those working to keep the public safe.
I am especially grateful to those residents who have been asked to leave their homes while precautionary checks are carried out.
The safety and security of the public is our first priority, and I want people to know that we will always take every step necessary to protect our communities and keep our country safe.
The investigation remains ongoing, and I would urge people not to speculate while the authorities establish the full facts.
In his speech, Stephen Kinnock started with a reference to his father, the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, and one of his most famous speeches.
It is a joy to be here with you. After a thousand generations of waiting for the first one, another Kinnock has the chance to speak with you from this platform.
My first job today is to convey warm and comradely greetings to you all from Dad.
He is no doubt watching on the telly, and no doubt drafting detailed feedback as we speak. So – no pressure!
Stephen Kinnock, the Welsh secretary, tried to compare Plaid Cymru with Reform UK in his speech to the Labour conference.
Before the 7 May election, Plaid were silent on their obsession with separatism. But now their true colours shine through.
They say: “Let’s build walls. Look inward. Keep Welsh power confined to Welsh borders.”
So what are they really saying to the Welsh steelworker? Your world stops here …
And Reform are no better. All they ever want to do is build walls between people and communities. They stoke division and tell you your neighbour is the problem.
Now they may offer an arresting narrative on Facebook, but I spy some plastic patriotism.
Funded by crypto billionaires, egged on by foreign powers waging war on Europe and on our values.
But conference – Wales is a nation of dragons, we are not Putin’s Parrots.
Plaid and Reform offer the same poison: you’re safer alone. You’re stronger, smaller.
But that’s a lie. And it’s not who we are in Wales.
Wales wasn’t built by people who retreated or set communities against each other.
Wales was built by people who went out and changed the world.
Plaid Cymru and Reform UK are very different parties and, when Kinnock claimed they were alike, he was relying on alternative versions of what “safer alone” politcs might mean. Plaid are an “alone” party in the sense they want independence from the UK (although for some people in the party that is not much more than a notional aspiration, and more devolution is the real priority). Reform UK is opposed to Welsh independence. But it does favour independence from institutions like the EU, and it is generally quite sceptical about the power of central government. By contrast, Plaid was strongly opposed to Brexit, and it firmly believes in the power of government as a potential force for good.
Commenting on Kinnock’s speech, Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid leader at Westminster, said:
When Stephen Kinnock says Plaid Cymru and Reform ‘offer the same poison’, he’s insulting the many thousands of former Labour voters who chose Plaid Cymru in May. Instead of throwing insults, Labour should reflect on why so many people chose positive change after 27 years of Welsh Labour rule.
Scotland and Wales both have recently acquired new Labour leaders. The Scottish Labour leader, Michael Marra, and the Welsh Labour leader, Ken Skates, are both taking over parties demoralised and diminished by the May elections results.
This is what Marra said in his speech about the lessons for Scottish Labour.
In Scotland, we have some difficult truths to face up to. May was the sixth Holyrood election in a row where we have lost votes and seats.
Scotland knows what we are against. We’re against an SNP government that has been in power too long. We’re against a Tory party that should never be in power again. And a Reform party that would take us and this country to a dark and dangerous place.
But for all Scotland knew what we are against, people didn’t know enough of what we were for. And it’s my job to change that.
Social justice. Good work, good housing, good public services. That’s what Labour is for.
The good life for working people, not struggling for a holiday once a year or a pint once a week. That’s what Labour is for.
In Scotland, Labour has been out of power at Holyrood since 2007. But until May Labour had always led the devolved government in Cardiff, and it had been the most powerful party in the country for 100 years. Skates told the conference Welsh Labour had to, in effect, start again from scratch. He said:
I want to speak honestly today about what happened to us in May. The result was shattering. There is no point dressing it up. After more than two decades in government, the people of Wales delivered a profound judgment on us. We heard it. I heard it.
There are some things which, when they break, you can pick up the pieces, glue them carefully back together, and put them on a shelf. May was not like that. The judgment was too fundamental.
Our task is not to reconstruct a Welsh Labour party that looks like the past. It is to build something new. Something confident. Something exciting.
No more Ming-vase politics for Wales. There should be no steady as she goes for Labour. That is not what we were built to do. It is time to stop protecting what was, and start creating what could be.
Emily Dickinson wrote that hope is: “the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all—”. I like that. But hope isn’t about pretending the storm never happened. Hope is what survives it, and politics is what rebuilds after it.
Politics must go further than poetry. Hope needs substance. Hope needs purpose. And hope needs results. People need to feel progress in their daily lives, because once they stop feeling it, soundbites mean nothing. And this is the lesson we have heard and learned. Not grudgingly. Not partially. Completely.
Douglas Alexander, the Scottish secretary, criticised the SNP government in Edinburgh for failing to support the defence industry in his speech to the conference. He said:
In March, this Labour government committed to invest £10m to support the Defence Technical College programme in Scotland. We asked and urged the Scottish government to match that funding so that Scottish workers would have the skills to benefit from the investments this government is making in defence.
Match funding from the Scottish government would mean that Scotland could have, not one, but two DTECs that would benefit young people in both the east and the west of our nation. And six months on? No mention of these colleges in their newly published Programme for Government and then late in the day - not a commitment but simply an offer to talk.
Talking is of course welcome, but the rest of the world isn’t waiting. Indeed, we’re at real risk of Scotland falling behind as DTECs move forward elsewhere across the UK. And this isn’t the first time that our government has had to urge action - and provide the leadership - our defence industries need.
Just last year, on this very stage, John Healey had to step in and provide the funding needed to save a specialist welding centre on the Clyde. All because the Scottish National party in its wisdom, decided that apparently there is something about welding metal to keep our country safe that is morally wrong.
Alexander was referring to what was then an SNP policy banning investment in the production of munitions. John Swinney, the first minister, subsequently reversed that policy.
Police have arrested two demonstrators outside the Labour party conference during a protest in support of Palestine Action, the Press Association reports. PA says:
More than 200 protesters sat outside the conference in Liverpool, many holding home-made banners which read: “I support Palestine Action,” the banned group.
Scores of police stood by before moving in to arrest an elderly man who was sitting under a tree.
Police then made another arrest after telling a protester he was holding up a sign supporting a proscribed organisation.
After asking the man if he was going to continue holding up the sign, police led him away.
More protesters are expected to sit in the same spot as those who have been arrested.
As first secretary of state, Louise Haigh is following in the footsteps of Barbara Castle, who was one of the first ministers to be given this title. Haigh started her speech to the conference this afternoon by praising her predecessor.
The last time I was here with you as your transport secretary, I spoke about my political hero - Barbara Castle.
A diminutive Yorkshire red head with a grit and determination that occasionally found herself in trouble.
Barbara once said “in politics, guts is all”.
What Barbara meant was that there’s no point being in politics if you’re not prepared to be brave.
I believe she was right then. I believe she is right today.
Haigh is in charge of the Cabinet Office and she used much of her speech to talk about procurement rules. She said changes introduced last month would ensure government spending protects British jobs. She said:
The chancellor John Healey and I have been very clear, if your business is bidding for government contracts to defend our country, then you will be judged on your commitment to backing high quality, British jobs.
And just in case Kemi Badenoch is watching - that’s what we mean when we say social security and national security go hand in hand. That’s the Labour way.
Haigh said the same approach would be applied to utility companies.
Because the big water companies, the energy giants - these are not free marketeers.
These are not Adam Smith’s merchants, in fierce competition to outdo one another on price or on quality.
These are monopolies with a vice-like grip on British people and British businesses.
So today I want to be clear that we expect private utility companies to use their own procurement to back British jobs and skills in manufacturing.
When existing contracts end in 18 months’ time we will begin bringing more than a thousand outsourced cleaning, catering and security jobs across Whitehall back in-house.
We will establish a dedicated Insourcing Unit in the Office of the prime minister and cabinet to work across departments, share best practice and accelerate the insourcing of thousands more jobs across Whitehall.
And she announced that the government is commissioning a new state-of-the-art marine research vessel.
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, criticised Andy Burnham for not saying anything about social housing in his interview this morning. In a statement, Polanski, who is the Green candidate in Holborn and St Pancras, where a byelection is taking place to find a replacement for Keir Starmer, said:
The prime minister promises he won’t ‘back away from difficult issues’ at Labour party conference today, but he has little to offer people who are struggling with unaffordable housing and spiralling bills.
While Labour pats itself on the back in Liverpool, I’ve been knocking on hundreds of doors in Holborn and St Pancras. People want to see bold change, not more of the same - and that’s why we’re calling for rent controls and 150,000 new social and council homes every year.
ITV’s Robert Peston has an intriguing theory as to how Andy Burnham will fund his plans for an NHS-style social care service. He has posted about it on social media. Here is an extract.
I came away from Andy Burnham’s pre-conference interview thinking he may well promise to fund his new free system of care for the elderly (at least in part) by reforming the expensive triple lock guarantee for above-inflation increases in the state pension.
Here were the clues in his chat with the bbc.
First he said that the plan would not be implemented in this parliament. It would be in Labour’s next general-election manifesto. And his reason was that he would not break Starmer’s manifesto, which promised to keep the triple lock.
Second, he said everyone would contribute to the funding of social care, but that the funding mechanism would be different from that of the NHS. In other words he would not use general taxation to pay for his new national care service. And to state the obvious, if the rate of increase in the state pension becomes less generous - up-rating by inflation perhaps rather than the higher of inflation or earnings, with a floor of 2.5% - this would have an impact both on current pensioners and future ones. All of us would contribute, either now or in the future.
Third, he has been listening to what I and others have been querying, which is whether he is prepared to take tough decisions that upset and enrage important sections of the community, when he believes doing so is in the national interest. He made a point, in the context of how he would fund social care, in saying he would show his mettle, his backbone. And to state the obvious, opposition parties and some older people will be angry if he abolishes the triple lock.
At the Labour party conference last year Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell went head to head in a hustings for the Labour deputy leadership. Powell, who had been sacked from cabinet, was seen as the pro-Burnham candidate and her victory (by a margin of 54% to 46%) was seen as evidence that members were not happy with Keir Starmer’s leadership.
Today they were in effect head to head again, speaking on after the other on the main conference platform.
Phillipson went first, speaking in her capacity as Labour’s chair. (She is also minister for women and equalities.) She spoke about Labour’s achievements in office, such as the Employment Rights Act, the Renters’ Rights Act, and getting rid of the two-child benefit cap, and she attacked the Tories and Reform UK.
The next election won’t just be a choice between Labour and the right. It is bigger than that. It is a choice between hope and fear.
We’ve seen what Reform believe. We’ve seen how they want to rip up the laws that protect our rights, our lives, our families, our chances.
And this month, we’ve seen how they make policy. When the crypto billionaires pay up, they don’t hang about. They change the line …
As for the Tories, well I hardly know where to start. Racing through the gutter with Reform, from maternity pay to Muslims at prayer. But they still love their greatest hits, they really, really do.
Kemi Badenoch sacked her shadow chancellor [Mel Stride] for suggesting Liz Truss might, just might, have got things wrong. Replaced him with a man who defended Liz Truss’s budget as “the right plans” which “make our economy competitive”.
(Phillipson was wrong about the reason for Stride being sacked. Stride did give a speech disowning Liz Truss, but that was more than a year ago, and was not the reason for Stride being replaced.)
Lucy Powell was speaking in her capacity as deputy leader and as education secretary. As deputy leader, she also attacked the Tories and Reform UK. She said:
Nigel Farage wants us to all blame immigrants for our country’s ills. He wants a race to the bottom on workers’ rights and deregulation. Especially for his Billionaire crypto mates. He believes in trickle-down economics, that never actually trickles down.
Conference, he’s just a modern-day love child of Enoch Powell and Margaret Thatcher. And quite bizarrely, for someone who seems to hate foreigners so much, he really does love their money, doesn’t he?
And as for the Tories … well, they seem somewhere between an identity crisis and collective amnesia.
But we won’t forget - the British people won’t forget - the damage they did in 14 years of government. They left this country worse off, our public services hollowed out, and now they’ve got the nerve to lecture us on the crises they created.
Charities in the care sector have strongly welcomed what Andy Burnham said about planning to introduce an NHS-style care service in his interview this morning.
Caroline Abrahams, director Age UK and co-chair of the Care and Support Alliance, a network of care charities, said:
The comments made by the prime minister today suggest we are closer to the fundamental social care reform we need to see than we’ve been for a generation … We await the prime minister’s speech on Tuesday with huge anticipation.
And Helen Walker, chief executive of Carers UK, a charity for carers, said:
This is a pivotal moment for families and their loved ones who need unpaid care, to hear the prime minister talk of building a National Care Service and introducing a system that works on NHS principles.
Originally reported by Guardian Health.