Burnham Targets Social Care, Youth Jobs, Devolution
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- Burnham will deliver a speech on social care next week and separately address youth unemployment and devolution, with No 10 describing the three priorities as 'some of the most difficult issues facing the country that have been ignored for too long.'
- Social care in England is means-tested — anyone with more than £23,250 in savings is ineligible for council-funded care — a structure Burnham first proposed reforming in 2009 as health secretary under Gordon Brown.
- Boris Johnson pledged in his 2019 first speech as PM to 'fix the crisis in social care once and for all'; Keir Starmer scrapped plans for an £86,000 lifetime cap on personal care costs in July 2024 after criticism.
- Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, called for 'cross-party consensus' on social care reform; Burnham replied on X: 'It most certainly is, Ed. Let's work together to find some common ground.'
- Conservative Party chairman Kevin Hollinrake challenged the agenda directly: 'Where's the money coming from, Andy? We're all dying to know.'
- In his first week, Burnham has also pledged to end rough sleeping in England, cut VAT on domestic electricity bills, lower the bus fare cap outside London from £3 to £2 in January, and reduce business rates for pubs, clubs and live music venues by 20% from April.
Why it matters: The £23,250 savings threshold forces anyone with modest assets to pay for care themselves, and two of the last three PMs (Johnson in 2019, Starmer in 2024) publicly pledged to fix social care and failed — making Hollinrake's 'Where's the money coming from?' challenge the central credibility test for Burnham's agenda.
