Andy Burnham promised a 10-year plan for “where we all want Britain to be” when he gave his first speech as prime minister on the Downing Street steps in July.
Although he didn’t use the word “neoliberalism” on that occasion, he said Britain took wrong turns in the 1980s, with political power centralised and economic power privatised.
His 10 year plan would do nothing less than reverse that.
Recent doubts about when it would be published appear to have been resolved – but there are concerns among his critics that it won’t be as transformational as promised.
The context
Burnham laid out his criticism of the state in the Makerfield by-election campaign in May. He said Britain had been on the “wrong path” for four decades. “Privatisation in the 90s and austerity in the 2010s... It all adds up to 40 years of neoliberalism that have not been kind to the north of England.”
He continued outside Downing Street when he became prime minister, pledging a 10-year plan to lay out a “path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be, wherever we’re coming from, whatever party we support”.
The plan would include reindustrialisation, greater public control of the economy, social housing and devolution.
“More control of the basics so that we can make it more functional,” Burnham told the Labour conference in September. “More power in the hands of people and places to set their own ambitions. And from there, good growth in every postcode, hope in every heart.”
The phrase “10-year plan” deliberately conjures a different political era and its language. Burnham evoked the vision and bravery of the 1945 Labour government’s planned economy in his conference speech.
Historians also drew parallels with Harold Wilson’s 1960s governments when he set up a National Economic Development Office and tried, ultimately unsuccessfully, to shift power away from the Treasury into a new Department for Economic Affairs.
This was language to enthuse Labour supporters. Critics on the right saw it as a throwback to the failed state control of the economy that needed Margaret Thatcher to sweep it away.
With Burnham’s core political strategy at stake, and a deliberately low-key Budget just passed, there has been much scrutiny and speculation about the 10-year plan.
Even if the plan is admirably bold, putting it into action will be constrained by geopolitical conditions including conflict with Iran and Russia. Burnham himself has admitted he can do little to ease the cost of living until the Iran conflict is resolved.
Inflation is predicted to rise still further and remain high until 2030, driven by the rise in global oil prices caused by war, and the UK’s borrowing costs are the highest they have been in two decades. The government’s constraints are being “worsened by global events, most noticeably war in the Middle East”, according to Helen Miller, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
The timing
Burnham himself fuelled some of the speculation over when the plan would be published. In an interview with the Economist last week, he acknowledged the date might slip.
“We may go into the new year, to be honest, there is that – December or January, I think we will need to leave that open. I don’t think we’ve got a firm landing zone for it yet,” he said.
That length of delay was acceptable to some, who argued that the scale of the undertaking meant it could not be rushed. It gave others cause to question how Burnham had even got to six months in without a plan. Either way, Burnham moved to quash the doubts at PMQs yesterday [11 Nov].
“We will present our plan for Britain to this House before it rises for the Christmas recess,” the prime minister told MPs.
The content
Reports suggest the writing of the plan is being supervised by Peter Hyman, who was an adviser to Tony Blair and Keir Starmer, with a stint as a head teacher in between. Also on the writing team is a consultant from Boston Consulting Group, which was linked to the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. BCG once employed Burnham’s chief of staff, former Blairite James Purnell.
Number 10 North has a role, because of its functions in local economic growth and devolution, but the details are unclear. “The government is committed to delivering an ambitious and credible 10-year plan, drawing on the best expertise available both inside and outside government,” said a government spokesperson.
The Sunday Times reports the plan will be divided into three: growing up, getting on, and growing old. It says there will be sections on childhood and life opportunities, AI and pensions in a package “relentlessly domestic in focus”.
Control over water companies is due to be included in the 10-year plan. Announcing plans for eight new regional water councils last week, environment secretary Angela Eagle said “for decades, the water industry has failed to work for the people and places it was meant to serve”, adding that further details of a “radical new water system” would be set out in the 10-year plan.
At PMQs, Burnham confirmed there will be a proposal for a national care service in the plan. Elsewhere he has suggested that welfare will be included, with changes to eligibility for benefits but greater spending on support to get back to work.
All told, this will constitute a a vision that is “compelling” and “substantial”, Burnham told The Economist, blaming “inaccurate briefing” for suggestions otherwise. But there are concerns among Labour MPs and others that the plan will not live up to its radical promise.
“Colleagues have been left with a sense that there won’t be a high degree of specificity or a lot of fixed targets in the plan,” said one.
Andy McNae, head of the Reindustrialisation Research Group of Labour MPs, said: “There are a lot of gaps in the government’s reindustrialisation strategy which are not yet filled. The 10-year plan is a chance to fill them, but in the briefings we have been given that is not what we are seeing.”
Labour MP Clive Lewis said: “The irony will not be missed that a radical ten-year programme to end neoliberalism and rewire our economy and constitution is going to be handed down from a closed room with a corporate entity.”
What people are saying
“I’m not surprised he’s asked management consultants to help him write his 10-year plan. He needs all the help that he can get… This government is totally adrift.” -Leader of the opposition Kemi Badenoch at PMQs
“She will see our plan for Britain next month presented to this House, it will lay a new path for this country, breaking with the failed policies of the party opposite, it will lay a path for this country to go forward.” - Andy Burnham responds
“Labour MPs are right to be concerned. More tinkering and hiring right wing US consultants won’t solve the disastrous cost of living crisis for households and businesses. Andy Burnham said he’d end neoliberalism but there seems to be no plan or resolve to do it.” - Green Party leader Zack Polanski
What happens next
Once the 10-year plan is published, it will take next year’s Spending Review to detail how it will be paid for. No date has yet been set for the review but it must take place some time in 2027. Ministers will be desperately hoping for the geopolitical outlook to have eased by then. ■
About the author: Kevin Gopal is a Manchester-based journalist who has returned to freelancing after editing Big Issue North from 2007 until its closure in 2023. He writes regularly for The Lead to untangle the issues facing the UK and also reporting on social justice and other issues across the North of England as part of our award-winning The Lead Local titles.
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We’ll be back in your inbox on Saturday with more on the 10-year plan and a chance for you to tell us what you think, as readers of The Lead, should be in it. And if you missed our good news, catch up on how our Lead Local network of original in-depth local journalism is growing thanks to securing support from the government’s Local News Fund and also have a browse of our Burnham’s Britain series as we look at the big issues the PM and team are grappling with and will need to address when the 10-year plan is delivered.
Since the Tories can't produce a plan for next week, Andy Burnham's idea of a ten year plan is amazingly ambitious.