Andy Burnham will argue for closer integration with the European Union at a UK-EU summit due by the end of this year, saying agreements covering sectors such as agri-foods could add “fractions of percentage points” to UK growth.
In an interview with Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart for The Rest Is Politics: Leading, due to be broadcast tomorrow, the prime minister also said defence would take a larger share of public spending, that Alan Milburn’s report on young people and work had not been delayed indefinitely, and that he had been told Russia interfered in the 2016 referendum.
“I’m going to go into that process very clear with people that Brexit has done more harm than good to UK growth, particularly, but to other things as well,” Burnham said. “And I’m going to argue for closer integration, because that will enable us to improve the growth prospects of the country.”
The UK-EU summit and the options beyond it
Burnham said “serious discussions” were under way about improving how the UK works with Europe “in relation to certain sectors”. He said this could “add percentage points to the UK growth figures, or let’s say fractions of percentage points, because that’s what’s in front of us in terms of the summit”.
“Yes I want to do a deal on agri-foods and energy,” he said. “The issue is it might be that we just have to align then with what is already there.” He said there was still an argument for doing so, but asked whether the UK could be “rule takers not rule makers long term”.
He said the message he had received from European counterparts since taking office was: “if we don’t know where the UK is going, it’s hard to do these arrangements with you.”
Burnham said he had asked the minister responsible for European relations to “look at the options in relation to our relationship with Europe and lay out what do they look like”, work he said would take place “over the next year”. He noted that George Osborne “was talking about a customs union not so long ago”, and said there was also “the option just to stay where we are”.
Asked by Campbell whether seeking to rejoin the EU would require another referendum, he said: “I think it’s jumping ahead too far at this stage, Alastair, but I do think it’s got to be done with the consent of the public.”
On immigration, which he said would also be discussed at the summit, Burnham said: “The reality is you need collaboration to control immigration, and that’s got weaker.”
The pitch to business
Stewart asked Burnham to make the case to a foreign entrepreneur choosing between California and the UK. Stewart said people he met at conferences abroad saw the UK as “over regulated, overtaxed, pretty slow moving and not super enthusiastic towards business”.
“Well, the first thing I would say, Rory, is stability,” Burnham said. “I think people are looking for stability in a turbulent world.”
He said businesses asked him where talent would come from, and that the education system needed to change. “We do need to talk about how do we have a system that supports people to start a business, a startup turning into a scale up, rewards them to stay,” he said. “These are questions that are at the front of our mind as we head towards the budget and beyond.”
Burnham said Britain was “the fastest growing country in the G7” this year, without citing a source for the figure.
Asked for his priorities, he said the unifying idea was “more control”. “We are not sufficiently in control of our own economy because we don’t have sufficient control over the price of some of the basic things that everybody has to buy,” he said.
In discussion after the interview, Stewart said “the story around growth is a little bit vague”. He said the prime minister saw the solution as more control “when many many businesses in Britain think the problem is there’s far too much regulation and far too much government interference”. Campbell said of the Budget: “I think it’s going to be pretty tough.”
Defence, young people and pensions
“Defence will have to be a bigger part of our public spending,” Burnham said. “That’s just a fact given the way things are and the way the world has developed.”
He said the government was “not pulling back” from its Nato obligations and would set out “soon and at the spending review next year how we intend to meet those”.
The prime minister, who rejected a £4bn housing benefit cut to fund defence at Prime Minister’s Questions on 9 September, said his message was “don’t make a choice between social security in the broadest sense and national security”.
Business Matters reported on Wednesday that the Institute of Directors had responded to reports of a delay to the Milburn Review, whose interim report was published by the Department for Work and Pensions on 28 May. Campbell asked whether the second phase was being held until after the Budget.
“It’s not at all about Alan’s report being delayed indefinitely,” Burnham said. “We will show the same boldness as we did on the triple lock with what Alan is going to recommend.” He did not give a publication date.
He said the response would include “an education system that gives parity to academic and technical” and “a guaranteed apprenticeship if people want to go in that direction”. It would be “a whole government approach”, he said, and not “a traditional DWP reform”.
Burnham told the Labour Party conference on 29 September that he would scrap the state pension triple lock after the next general election. He said in the interview that it was right “to start to show how the change can be made in the 2030s to then unlock billions of pounds for social care”. Asked how long it would take to establish a National Care Service, he did not give a date.
AI and energy
Burnham said he had appointed Kanishka Narayan as an AI minister attending cabinet, and would use the UK’s G20 presidency to seek “a global set of standards, a global code” for the technology.
“I think we are in a clear third place,” he said of the UK’s position behind the US and China. Stewart said afterwards that this was “sort of true but it’s a hell of a long way back”.
On energy, Burnham said: “We’re going to have to use oil and gas for some time. That’s a fact.” He said it “needs to pay for a clean energy future or provide the bridge to a clean energy future” and “could help speed up the decoupling of gas and electricity prices”.
Russia, UAE investment and Starmer
Burnham said that on entering Downing Street he asked whether Russia had interfered in the 2016 referendum. “And I’ve had the clear answer that yes, there was,” he said.
He did not say who gave him that answer or what form the interference took.
On the controversy surrounding Manchester City, Burnham said “the findings of the independent commission are serious” and that the process “has to run its course”. He said these matters were separate from investment by the United Arab Emirates in Manchester. “The football issues are different from the investment issues,” he said.
He said the leader of the opposition had asked him to publish details of his meetings from his time as mayor of Greater Manchester, and that he would do so. “I only had one significant meeting, actually, and that was in 2021,” he said.
Asked about his predecessor, Burnham said Keir Starmer’s government “was too negative” and “too factional at times”. He added that the two men had “never let our relationship disintegrate”.
