A detailed policy agenda for Andy Burnham’s in-tray

Andy Burnham’s keynote speech to Parliament at the start of the new session marked a break with decades of neoliberalism and promised a progressive agenda to fix the problems that this bankrupt ideology has generated.

Now the thinktank Compass have published a detailed set of policies outlining what that agenda should comprise. In Ending Business As Usual: Policy Options for a Progressive Government, 17 organisations present a menu of 70 wide-ranging policies that the New Burnham Government needs to embrace.

The report includes contributions from institutions such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Electoral Reform Society, New Economics Foundation, IPPR, Women’s Budget Group, and Common Wealth. Each policy chapter is written by an expert in that field, and “authors were explicitly asked to set out new proposals which would mark a break with existing policy, not simply minor modifications to it.” This is the minimum necessary to ensure that Andy Burnham’s term of office does not constitute a warmed over version of Starmerism.

The report, over 200 pages in length, is granular in its detail. Important ideas include

Each proposal is analysed in terms of its economic, social and political advantages, its fiscal cost and its implementation and timetable. Undoubtedly there are many areas where more radical solutions might be embraced, but the report is an important starting point for any discussion on what Andy Burnham’s Government should be attempting over the next two to three years.