UK leader Burnham faces lawmakers for first time since taking office
LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Andy Burnham will face lawmakers in the House of Commons on Tuesday for the first time since becoming U.K. leader six weeks ago, with wars in Europe and the Middle East weighing on his promise to kick-start the economy and ease the cost of living.
Since taking office on July 20, Burnham has traveled around the country promising to deliver renewed national optimism after the downbeat two-year tenure of predecessor Keir Starmer, who announced Tuesday that he would resign his seat in Parliament after 11 years.
Burnham has announced a series of modest money-saving measures aimed at giving “breathing space” to people and businesses, including a tax cut on domestic energy bills and a lowering of levies on pubs and nightclubs.
But neither opponents nor his own Labour Party legislators have been able to grill him on the details of pledges made against the tough backdrop of mounting security challenges and economic pressure from the Iran war.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, who shook up her top team on Monday by appointing new economy and foreign affairs spokespeople, finally gets a chance to grill Burnham on Tuesday when Parliament returns from its summer break.
Burnham, a former lawmaker who was elected to Parliament in June after almost a decade away as mayor of Greater Manchester, is set to make a statement in the House of Commons setting out his vision of a more active but less centralized state.
The prime minister’s office said that Burnham will set out “a clear plan for how we turn things round.” He is expected to say that greater public control over water, energy and transportation can drive economic growth and ease households’ financial burden, though it’s unclear to what extent he plans to reverse decades of privatization of key pillars of the economy.
Opponents have plenty of questions, including about No. 10 North, a second prime minister’s office in Manchester. Burnham says it will help drive plans to give local leaders more powers and spread economic growth around the country. Critics call it an expensive gimmick.
Burnham also faces pressure over Britain’s overcrowded prisons. He was forced to water down plans to release some offenders early following calls from the widow of a police officer who died in a hit-and-run to keep his killers in jail.
In his first foreign trip as U.K. leader, Burnham visited Kyiv last month to underscore Britain’s support for Ukraine. Like other European countries, the United Kingdom is under pressure to spend more on the military in response to challenges from Russia and the Trump administration, whose priorities lie elsewhere.
Burnham’s government will have to provide details in the coming weeks on how it plans to fund an increase in defense spending to meet NATO’s target of 3.5% of gross domestic product by 2035.
Burnham also faces a contentious decision on whether to greenlight more oil and gas production in the North Sea, a move supported by U.S. President Donald Trump that faces opposition from advocates of clean energy.
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