Five takeaways from Andy Burnham’s Labour conference speech

Andy Burnham has delivered his first speech to the Labour conference as party leader and prime minister. Here is what stood out.

It was no surprise to see Andy Burnham tieless and roaming the conference stage in Liverpool, unanchored by the traditional leader’s speech podium.

But despite the relaxed TED talk vibe, this was sober and serious speech. He set out major new policies – not always a given on these occasions – and spoke with real emotion about his family and working class roots.

There were few jokes – and in stark contrast to his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer’s speech last year, he did not mention Nigel Farage or Kemi Badenoch once.

But he also avoided mention of some of the trickier issues he faces, such as welfare reform and how his government will pay for promised increases in defence spending.

Much of his speech was aimed at the party faithful, with a promise to “break with the direction of the past 40 years and put Britain on a new path”, and bring back traditional Labour values.

It went down extremely well in the hall. We counted 11 standing ovations in just over an hour.

The first came when he vowed to overturn Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s reforms to give the public greater control over housing, water and energy.

The new part was a plan to legislate later this year to repeal Thatcher’s “ideological ban on public ownership of water companies”.

He said this would put the UK on a 10-year path to a “very different water system” – although there was not an explicit commitment to renationalisation.

The run up to the speech was dominated by speculation about whether Burnham would scrap the state pension triple lock, which guarantees increases in line with the highest of inflation, earnings or 2.5%.

In the end, it was a bit more nuanced than that.

He said he would “honour” Labour’s commitment to keep the triple lock until the end of the current Parliament.

But from April 2030, the state pension would rise every year by inflation or 2.5%, whichever is higher, under Burnham’s plans – and it will be increased in some years if needed to keep pace with average worker earnings.

The change, he said, would “generate significant savings” to fund his long-held ambition of creating a National Care Service in England.

“I accept I may pay a political price,” he told the conference.

“But someone has to go through the pain barrier and rip the plaster off.”

Burnham has made no secret of his desire to scrap Westminster’s first-past-the-post voting system.

And his announcement of a national commission on electoral reform went down very well with many in the hall, who have been calling for it.

“We will contest the next election with a manifesto commitment to change the electoral system so that everyone’s vote counts and everyone’s voice is heard,” he said to cheers.

As he neared the end of his speech, Burnham appeared overcome by emotion and it looked for a brief moment as though he could not carry on.

He was speaking about his father Roy, who he lost to Alzheimer’s earlier this month.

“If only, if only he had been able to appreciate that moment of the family in Downing Street,” Burnham said of his first day in his new role.

“The son of a man who failed his 11-plus becoming prime minister.”

The longest ovation of all came when he pledged to “use this job to build the kind of Britain my dad wanted to see – and fight with everything I’ve got to keep it together”.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.