Serious spending questions raised at Andy Burnham's first PMQs

Andy Burnham has just faced his first Prime Minister’s Questions at the despatch box, although he has already been in office for just over 40 days.

Now that summer recess is over, the Prime Minister can no longer enjoy the control over his communications that social media presented him with – now he must face scrutiny from his political opponents. His rustiness in the Commons was highlighted by the Speaker, who accused the new Prime Minister of taking too long to answer his questions.

The focus of today’s session was on spending: namely, whether the Prime Minister is falling into the trap of overpromising. Burnham claimed today that his promise to take VAT off of electricity bills will help people with the cost of living, but struggled to give other examples of where he was planning to make cuts.

The Prime Minister also refused to answer whether his government would raise taxes again, or to rule out further borrowing, criticising the Conservative leader for wanting to indulge in speculation over the upcoming Budget at the end of October.

He said the economic problems faced by the country were in part due to mismanagement under previous Tory governments, and that he plans to turn things around using his time as Greater Manchester mayor as a model.

Burnham also came under pressure over defence spending. Despite appointing former defence secretary John Healey as his chancellor – a man who quit Sir Keir Starmer’s government over inadequate defence funding – Burnham’s government will only set out a plan to spend 3% of GDP on defence in next year’s spending review and not the upcoming Budget.

The opposition leader pointed to the unstable geopolitical situation at present after the German government accused Russia of orchestrating a failed drone attack at Leipzig airport. Burnham agreed that the House should stand in solidarity with Germany.

The Prime Minister says that he wants to focus on “problem solving, rather than point scoring”, and suggested today that Labour and the Conservatives could work together on reducing the size of the benefits bill. But opposition leader Kemi Badenoch wasn’t persuaded, telling Burnham that: “A prime minister needs to be a leader, not a people pleaser.”

He took her advice on board when he hit out at her newly-reshuffled frontbench, featuring shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith, who helped write Liz Truss’s mini-Budget. “God help us,” Burnham concluded.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey implored the new Prime Minister to rejoin the single market and cut a new deal with Europe. Burnham has previously blamed Brexit for low growth and suggested in an interview last year that he would like to see Britain rejoin the European Union.

The Prime Minister said today that he will continue Sir Keir Starmer’s work of building closer ties with Europe, and at an upcoming EU summit, he wants to focus on getting better deals for British steel and for farmers. He did not, however, comment on the single market.

The SNP’s Seamus Logan had a question today, too. He quizzed the new Prime Minister on energy, raising the Strategic Special Energy Plan, which will determine how energy infrastructure is developed over the next few decades.

Logan asked Burnham to ensure the pathway that is chosen is beneficial to ScotWind, to help the transition to renewables north of the border. The Prime Minister said that he wants to support industrial transition in Scotland, to find “common cause” with the SNP on this, and that he has plans to visit Scotland soon – heavily hinting he will journey to Aberdeen – suggesting too that he has plans to re-industrialise Grangemouth with a focus on sustainable aviation fuel.

Burnham added that he was opposed to being “too ideological” about the transition, stating his priority was that it needed to work.

Today’s session was the second opportunity for MPs to quiz the Prime Minister in two days, after he appeared at the despatch box for the first time in 16 years on Monday, making a statement that lasted three and a half hours. But the scrutiny on Burnham is only just beginning: despite the bounce in the polls he has brought Labour, he has taken over a party that is prone to becoming very publicly divided, at a time when voters are increasingly losing faith in politicians altogether.

The new Prime Minister sees one of his key strengths as being perceived as a man of the people – and has promised to answer ‘People’s Major Questions’ online in a bid to show voters he is more modern than the stuffy traditions of Westminster – and that he is prepared to listen. Burnham has just three years to persuade people that he is the right man for the job and can turn around the cost of living crisis that has taken hold of the country. But as today’s PMQs demonstrates, he has his work cut out.