Angela Rayner: ‘We can’t rerun what happened in 2016’

The autumn Budget will be delivered on Wednesday, but speculation over its contents has been overshadowed by Andy Burnham saying in the Sunday Times that the country needs an ‘honest discussion’ about a possible return to freedom of movement, in pursuit of a better deal with the EU. Nigel Farage has called the comments a ‘total betrayal’ of Brexit voters, including those in Burnham’s Makerfield constituency. On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg showed Housing Secretary Angela Rayner a clip from a few months ago of the Prime Minister saying ‘the last thing we should do right now is rerun those [Brexit] arguments’, and asked why he was now doing exactly that. Rayner denied the Prime Minister had reversed his decision, and claimed that ten years on from the referendum, with exports down 20 per cent, the government wanted an ‘honest conversation’ about Britain’s relationship with Europe. Kuenssberg pointed out that freedom of movement was at the heart of the Brexit debate, and noted that Labour’s 2024 manifesto ruled out a return to freedom of movement. Rayner denied that Burnham was breaking that promise, saying the issue would not be reopened in this parliament, but that the government ‘can’t go backwards’. Rayner claimed that the Prime Minister had shown he is tackling ‘the big issues’. Robert Jenrick: ‘It’s completely mad’ Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick had a different view, telling the BBC that Andy Burnham’s position was ‘completely mad’. Jenrick claimed that Burnham was proposing to open Britain’s borders to another 450 million people, which he argued would undercut British workers’ wages and put more pressure on housing, the NHS and community cohesion. He argued that it was ‘dishonest’, since Burnham had said in Makerfield that he did not want to reopen the debate. Kuenssberg noted that many economists believe Brexit has not delivered economically, and suggested politicians are entitled to change their minds. Jenrick claimed the data showed that mass migration had been ‘a disaster’ for living standards, arguing that successive chancellors had ‘juiced up’ GDP figures while GDP per capita had fallen. Kuenssberg pressed him, noting that there was a lot of economic data suggesting leaving the EU had harmed the economy. Jenrick said he didn’t believe that, and claimed the UK had performed better than other large European economies. Kuenssberg noted that Jenrick himself had campaigned for Remain. Jenrick insisted he had ‘never thought freedom of movement was a good thing’, and said people were ‘hard up’ and wanted the government to tackle the immediate issues at home. Daisy Cooper: Freedom of movement would be ‘a really good thing for growth’ Laura Kuenssberg also asked Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper whether her party would back a return to freedom of movement if Andy Burnham proposed it. Cooper said a better deal with the EU was the ‘single biggest lever’ for growing the economy, and that the Lib Dems wanted the UK to join the single market and a customs union, and accept free movement. Kuenssberg put it to her that many viewers voted Leave to regain control of immigration. Cooper argued that ten years on, Britain had ‘the worst of both worlds’, claiming that businesses were not creating jobs in the UK and that young people were left unemployed as a result. She added that rejoining EU cooperation through the new asylum pact would give the UK access to biometric data to tackle small boat crossings. Kuenssberg pressed Cooper on whether she would accept unlimited immigration from the EU. Cooper stressed that free movement was reciprocal and argued that people would not come for ‘jobs that don’t exist’, but that cutting red tape would allow businesses to create more jobs and enable tax cuts. Angela Rayner: 1.5 million homes ‘was always a stretch target’ Reports suggest that Chancellor John Healey will announce more than £1 billion of new capital funding for social and affordable housing in Wednesday’s budget. However, the government is falling short of its target of building 1.5 million homes this parliament. Full Fact estimates that 437,900 homes were built between July 2024 and September 2026, around 29 per cent of the target. On Sky News, Anne McElvoy asked Housing Secretary Angela Rayner whether she was optimistic about getting more money for housing in the budget. Rayner said the government had already invested £10bn in its social and affordable homes programme, and hoped the budget would show it was committed to building ‘the biggest wave of council housing since the 1980s’. McElvoy pointed out that the government was behind on its housing target, and asked whether the budget would put it back on track. Rayner admitted that the target ‘was always a stretch target’, and that conflict in the Middle East had pushed up construction costs. She added that far too many people were waiting for social housing, and the Prime Minister and Chancellor were determined to change that. Robert Jenrick: ‘We can’t go on like this’ Anne McElvoy also spoke to Reform’s Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick, who argued that Healey’s budget has to be a ‘course correction’. In their alternative budget, Reform will announce plans to cut £40bn to fund £1,300 worth of tax reliefs per household. McElvoy asked Jenrick where the plan left the party’s existing pledge to cut £80bn from public spending over five years. Jenrick said the £40bn was the first-year share of those savings, and claimed the country was ‘broke’ while Healey was preparing a ‘steady as she goes’ budget that would ‘leave working people to struggle this winter’. He warned there ‘might be a financial crisis’. McElvoy put it to him that Reform was simply bringing forward pledges it had already made. Jenrick said the savings would be used to restore market confidence, so that the UK was not paying higher debt interest than Greece or France, and to put money in people’s pockets by raising the tax-free personal allowance to £15,000, lifting the VAT threshold to £150,000 for small businesses and taking £250 off energy bills.