Burnham has finally come clean about the welfare bill

Andy Burnham has this afternoon admitted the least well-kept secret in Whitehall – that his planned changes to benefits will at first see costs rise. In a succession of broadcast interviews, the PM pointedly did not say when the overall bill would start to fall. We are now clearly in the run-up to the publication of the Milburn review into the million young people who are not in education, employment or training (otherwise known as Neets).

Burnham told Times Radio that this state of affairs left these youngsters ‘without hope’ and that ‘wholesale change’ would be needed. ‘Of course, in time, the savings will come, and there will be a crossover point,’ he said, ‘but there will be a need to invest up front in young people. But it’s an investment in society. It’s the right investment to make.’ The PM made clear it would be about more than just welfare reform. ‘If you leave young people in their twenties without hope, that is a dangerous thing to do… We need a wholesale change in the way we think about growing up in this country, the way we support young people.’

Burnham said he would take ‘tough decisions’, which could include young people facing ‘changes to benefits and eligibility’ in exchange for ‘more in-work support for young people’, including mental health support. The PM spoke as he introduced a plan to legislate to force employers to say what a job will pay on their adverts, so young people know what they are letting themselves in for. Trying to drum up votes from the young is always a perilous business.

Just ask Ed Miliband, who issued a fawning election video in 2015 with the now convicted rapist Russell Brand. Burnham himself publicly denounced critics of the unwashed comedian, who has now proved to be a sexual predator. Indeed much of the left fawned over a man who seemed a crank to many. Most popular Alexander Larman The sudden end of the World of David Walliams Alexander Larman The welcome downfall of Russell Brand Steerpike Russell Brand’s New Statesman apostles Asked by the BBC’s Simon Jack what he now thinks, Burnham said: ‘I had no idea of the full extent of what he was doing or what he went on to do.

His crimes are horrific. He’s rightly been held to account, justice for the victims. It’s not always the case that people know everything about people in public life. Credit to the victims, huge credit, the courage that it’s taken but also the journalists who’ve exposed this.’ If only he’d listened to the comedian Sean Lock, whose rant about Brand was prescient. Welfare reform also remains a minefield for the government. Most Labour MPs don’t want to see benefits or access to them cut.

Burnham is having to make this a moral argument about lives left on the scrapheap. But don’t expect the bill to come down any time soon. As he told the BBC: ‘What I won’t do is go down the old approach of crude cuts, where the DWP will say, well there’s a number we’ve got to make in terms of cuts, let’s just start cutting benefits.’ Even once the Milburn report is published, there will only be a white paper in the New Year and doubtless another public consultation.

Yesterday, Burnham admitted his much-touted Ten Year Plan could also be delayed until January and would form the basis of another consultation. Following the non-event of a Budget, it’s further evidence that Burnham is running a ‘mañana government’, kicking key issues down the track. Everything points to him deciding in March whether to call an election for May. The eagle-eyed Nikki da Costa, former head of legislative affairs in Tory No. 10s of the past, provides further evidence that Downing Street is keeping its options open.

In a very useful thread on X, she wrote : ‘I’ve reviewed all government bills currently before parliament which haven’t reached Royal Assent (17). The govt is in good shape to end the session by March for either an early King’s Speech or significantly limiting any legislative cost to an early general election.’ If there is an election, you can be pretty sure that welfare spending will be high up the list of issues. And that wayward left-wing comedians are less likely to appear in Labour broadcasts.