Unions who donate to Labour met John Healey on Thursday to press home their demands ahead of next month’s Budget.

Unite, the UK’s second biggest union, has called for a reversal of the freezing of tax thresholds, that see the lowest paid drawn into paying tax.

The call is one of a number of policy proposals unions have taken to the chancellor, including increased taxes on tech companies.

Unions say they believe Healey’s first budget will define Andy Burnham’s direction of travel as prime minister.

Burnham said the freezing of tax thresholds had come up on the doorsteps when he was campaigning to return to Westminster as MP for Makerfield.

In her last Budget, then-Chancellor Rachel Reeves froze tax thresholds until 2031. The basic rate of 20% is paid on annual earnings between £12,571 and £50,270. The higher rate of 40% is paid on earnings between £50,271 and £125,140.

By not uprating those rates in line with inflation, more lower paid people have paid tax for the first time and more better-off workers, including public service workers such as senior nurses, police officers and teachers, are now paying tax at the higher rate.

Unite leader Sharon Graham said: “We must see things happen immediately. I told him [Burnham] that you have to make working class people believe their best days are in front of them.

“That tax threshold of around £12,500 – if that hadn’t been frozen for the past few years it would have moved up to over £16,000 now. People at the lower end are paying eye-watering amounts of tax.”

The country’s biggest union Unison is calling for the chancellor to increase tax on large tech companies to finance public sector investment and the transition to green energy.

It is also calling for the Treasury to commission research into whether the balance of taxation needs to move from income to wealth.

The union’s general secretary Andrea Egan is not expecting dramatic change from Healey straight away at the Budget, but is expecting a new direction to be mapped out.

Her union is demanding that Labour makes clear it too is under new leadership and isn’t just “continuity Starmer” with a more affable face.

The third biggest union, GMB, also has significant financial links to the Labour Party.

Leader Gary Smith has long advocated raising revenue from the oil and gas industries by approving the new Rosebank and Jackdaw fields in the North Sea.

A decision on whether these will go ahead seems unlikely until after the October by election in Sir Keir’s former seat in north London – though the government maintains the timing is out of its hands as it is a quasi judicial decision.

Smith said: “The government really needs to get on with this.

“We are going to need oil and gas for generations to come. Rosebank and Jackdaw are good for jobs, good for the economy, but also good for the environment as we won’t have to import so much from abroad as that is carbon intensive.”

Smith also wants to see confidence building measures for the construction industry in the Budget.

He said: “We have half a million bricks stockpiled in this country – enough to build two Kidderminsters – and factories are being mothballed because we are not getting on with the house building programme. They have to cut through the red tape.”

Following today’s meeting, the BBC understands the chancellor will be speaking to industry experts, from business to trade unions, who will be key to reindustrialising the UK.

Healey made clear that tough choices where necessary will be taken but doubled down on his commitment to give businesses and workers a bit of breathing room where he can.

In the next couple of weeks, TUC officials and representatives of those unions which don’t donate to Labour will also meet the chancellor.

TUC leader Paul Nowak told me his main demand was for Healey to reverse the last government’s cut in the surcharge paid by banks to raise around £9bn to subsidise energy bills.

But he also wants to see the remit of the independent Budget watchdog, the OBR, revised, so it takes into account the value of long term investment and not just short term book-balancing.