Andy Burnham just isn’t serious

Less than 48 hours after Wednesday’s Budget, Andy Burnham was already disowning it . It was not “ideal”, he said, because he wished he had more “room for manoeuvre”. This isn’t serious. Being Prime Minister means dealing with the world as it is, not the world that you want. It means taking tough decisions in the national interest but, instead, he is putting them off. Take defence spending. Rather than setting out how we will find the funding to get to 3 per cent by 2030, which the Chancellor once said he was certain Britain needed for our own security, we just had vague commitments.

After 100 days in office, all Burnham has got is a plan to publish a plan at some point. He is promising a “10-year plan” by the end of the year, but his Government can’t even make a plan for the next 10 months. According to this Budget, they are planning to increase fuel duty and restore VAT on electricity bills in July. Either they’ll have to do another Budget, perhaps before an early election, or families are in for a nasty shock. Despite a record 98 measures, tweaks and fiddles, this Budget boils down to the same old Labour: higher borrowing, higher debt, higher welfare and higher taxes.

Labour has raised taxes by at least £75bn . They’ve already taxed jobs, homes, pensions and family farms. Now they’re increasing taxes on savings, on rental properties and on banks. It’s easy politics to bash the banks, but families and businesses will pay the price through more expensive mortgages and loans. Labour is raising your taxes because they can’t break their welfare addiction. Under Labour, the working-age welfare budget is now forecast to increase by almost £60bn .

Twelve years ago, Conservatives introduced the welfare cap to keep the benefits bill under control. The OBR has said that Labour will breach this cap. Meanwhile, we learnt this week that rail fares can now be discounted by a third for people with ADHD. How exactly are cheaper train journeys going to improve their attention spans? The country is living well beyond its means, but Andy Burnham and John Healey are making it worse. Their Budget increases borrowing in every single one of the next five years.

Labour is adding £306bn to the national debt compared to the plans they inherited in 2024 . Every family knows that if you’re spending too much, the best time to stop is yesterday, and the next best time is now. But this Government is kicking the can down the road to the end of Parliament, pretending that the same Labour MPs who blocked Keir Starmer’s tiny welfare savings are going to allow spending cuts right before a general election.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, the worst is yet to come. Alongside Labour’s current plans, expensive proposals like a National Care Service and more council housing create a £49bn black hole at the heart of the public finances after this Budget. Who’s going to pay for it? The Prime Minister gave the game away on Friday when he said he would have written the 2024 manifesto differently. Let me translate that. He wishes he had more room to raise taxes even further.

To fund their promises and appease their MPs, Labour is going to have to raise taxes by £1,700 for every household. There is a better alternative. We have set out how we will cut spending by £70bn , using half the savings to cut the deficit, and the other half to cut taxes and get Britain working. We have shown how we will cut welfare to fund defence. The choice at the next election is becoming clearer by the day: higher taxes with Labour or lower taxes with the Conservatives.