Andy Burnham: ‘I will keep talking about hope until the people of Britain can feel it’

I entered Downing Street with a promise to deliver the biggest changes to Britain in 40 years and, 100 days in, I feel the need to stick to that more strongly than ever. Westminster has been failing people and places across the country for a long time. The decade since Brexit has been one characterised by drift and division. The good news is Britain is beginning to make a decisive break from this. We are laying out a positive, unifying path for the country, and more and more people are starting to join it.

What has struck me most about my first three months in office is the sheer number of people who come up to me and say: “Keep talking about hope.” I will, because I am in no doubt: there is a deep yearning in the country for bigger, more positive change than British politics has been serving up. My experience of coming back into government after 16 years away has shown me how much the country has changed in that time, and how little room for manoeuvre it now has when it comes to the public finances.

Part of doing politics differently means being honest about that. Austerity followed by Brexit have left us weakened. Britain cannot get back to where it needs to be in one leap or with one budget . Now, more than ever, we need to move away from the short-term mindset that has dominated Westminster for too long. We need a new long-term approach to how we do things, and a rewiring of the state to make it much more preventative and devolved .

In my first words as prime minister, on the steps of Downing Street, I committed to spell this out in a 10-year plan for Britain – and it is coming soon. Last week’s budget was an important milestone on the journey towards it. The chancellor and I decided early on that our first job was to create a platform of stability upon which we will bring through the bigger changes we want to make. We believe that has been achieved. At a time of such global uncertainty, it was right to have an earlier budget.

We wanted to avoid a prolonged period of speculation and create confidence in how things are being done. But ours was a difficult balancing act. We also wanted to give people significant help with cost of living pressures, avoid large tax rises and kickstart some of the radical reforms the country needs. Related articles: The laser that could reveal life’s hidden machinery Government defends Palestine Action ban ahead of legal case The most crucial area is energy .

We will not get the growth the country needs without substantial reform. The budget began to lay out the 10-year path to bringing down energy bills to levels in line with our European neighbours and speeding up grid connections. Where the budget was at its most radical was in the seeds it planted for fiscal devolution. Giving regions more ability to raise and retain tax income represents a more fundamental rebalancing of power in Britain than people have realised.

It will allow local areas to set new ambitions and move much more quickly towards realising them. More power in every postcode means more growth in every postcode. I want to make this a reality across all parts of Britain. That is the specific purpose for which I set up No 10 North , and it is already making major headway on it. This rewiring is an essential precursor to the reindustrialisation of Britain. We remain an innovation nation and have emerging clusters in all parts of Britain in the most future-facing industries.

Our job is to unlock that potential, giving local areas more power to back inventors and entrepreneurs, and build a pro-business approach, as we did in Greater Manchester . Reindustrialising Britain will mean better jobs in all parts of the country, and better opportunities for young people, as I saw at Rolls-Royce in Derby on Thursday. The company is one of our most prestigious names, and the budget has backed it to expand its footprint across Britain over the next decade through new markets in aviation and nuclear.

We want to work with Rolls-Royce, and others like it, to give all young people much better technical pathways from school, alongside wider personal support. This is how we will bring down the welfare bill in a fair way, and we will say more when Alan Milburn’s report is published later in the month. Again, it is about a sustainable, long-term approach rather than crude, short-term cuts that only lead to crisis spending in other areas. I hope people can begin to see the foundations I am laying for a very different Britain.

The budget has put down the first building blocks but there is so much more to come. I will keep talking about hope and won’t stop until people can feel it. Photograph by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images Labour Economy UK News Politics Opinion & Ideas National Andy Burnham Budget John Healey