Andy Burnham has completed his first full day as Prime Minister, during which he chaired his first Cabinet meeting and told his appointed ministers to examine “all possible ways” to help families struggling with high costs.
Burnham started the day by announcing that VAT on electricity bills will be removed, a move expected to knock £45 off the average bill from October 1. He said: “Westminster has not been working for people for too long, with families struggling with the cost of living. That needs to change. I said I wanted to give people breathing space, and that’s what I’m announcing on my second day as Prime Minister. We’re taking immediate action to cut taxes on energy bills, put more money in people’s pockets and bring back hope.”
New ministerial appointments
Since becoming the new PM, Andy Burnham has made a raft of new ministerial appointments, including Dan Jarvis and James Murray – who stepped in as defence secretary and health secretary respectively after resignations from Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet – as a security minister and Treasury minister.
The appointments are as follows:
- Dan Jarvis as Minister of State (Security Minister) jointly in the Home Office and the Cabinet Office
- Kirsty McNeill as Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
- James Murray as Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General
- Lucy Rigby as Minister of State in HM Treasury (Economic Secretary to the Treasury)
- Anna Turley as Minister of State in the Home Office
- Catherine McKinnell as Minister of State in the Ministry of Justice
- Katie White as Minister of State in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
- Andrew Western as Minister of State in the Department for Work and Pensions
- Dame Diana Johnson as Minister of State in the Department of Health and Social Care
- Florence Eshalomi as Minister of State in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government
- Kate Dearden as Minister of State in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
- Chris McDonald as Minister of State in the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade
- Ian Murray as Minister of State in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
- Emma Hardy as Minister of State in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- Emma Foody as Vice Chamberlain of HM Household (Government Whip)
- Andy Slaughter as Solicitor General
Cabinet meeting and cost-of-living focus
Burnham told the meeting: “That’s the mission that we’ve got to set ourselves together” and asked his colleagues to look into what their department could do to ease cost-of-living pressures, “big and small,” saying: “We need to be a cost-of-living Government, getting that cost of living down, looking at all possible ways of doing that.”
The former Greater Manchester mayor secured an early endorsement from Donald Trump after the pair spoke on the phone within an hour of Burnham arriving in Downing Street. The Prime Minister’s spokesman told reporters: “It was an extremely warm call and I think that’s reflected in both sides’ readouts.” After the call, Trump said the new prime minister “has got a big job ahead of him, but he will be able to do it” and pledged that the US “will be there to help.”
