Andy Burnham has bought himself a good week of headlines with populist policies – but whether he has bought Britain anything more durable is another matter, according to analysis by Political Correspondent Aaron Newbury.
Policy announcements
Burnham has announced that VAT on energy bills will be scrapped, the £2 bus fare cap restored, and business rates for pubs and music venues relieved.
Whilst each of these measures will be welcomed – and make for good social media 'clips' – each is worth remarkably little.
Limited impact
A VAT cut saves the average household around £45 a year, and arrives just before an expected increase in the energy price cap which will swallow most of it.
The bus fare cap will cost the treasury a modest sum, and the rate relief could be said to be worth little and be arriving too late.
Underlying problems
Ultimately the problem is what these measures avoid confronting. Household energy bills are high because of a combination of strangulated supply and high taxes on the base product itself.
Taxes on producers of energy has already slammed up costs and driven away investment, and Labour's obsession with net zero has proven costly. As of yet our Prime Minister has simply refused to address any of this.
Nor has he addressed the business rates system beyond a narrow, sector-specific tweak, leaving restaurants, hotels, cafés and cinemas paying full whack. Nor has he offered any plan to reduce a welfare bill which has only increased exponentially for over a decade – or the tax burden weighing on the businesses and workers expected to fund it.
Labour are treating the symptoms, whilst allowing the underlying disease – a state grown too large for the economy paying for it – to fester.
He has bought himself a good week of headlines, whether he has bought Britain anything more durable is another matter.
