Burnham’s 10-year plan is already running out of time

Burnham should be praised for his longer-term thinking, but how much use is a 10-year plan with only 2½ years to execute it, asks Eliot Wilson From the time of his election as Leader of the Labour Party, Andy Burnham has shown himself comfortable in thinking about public policy in broad terms and over a long time frame. When he accepted the leadership, he referred to “four decades of the neoliberalism that began in the 1980s”; as a lifelong politician, unlike his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer, he can reach back to his teens to place himself in the Labour tribe. The Prime Minister might want to reflect on whether “we all” want the United Kingdom to be a member of the European Union, for example. Still, politicians are often criticised for short-termism, so there is something refreshing about a leader crafting a “10-year plan”, even if it does invoke the language of tractor production and grain harvests. A 10-year plan already delayed Last week, however, talking to The New Statesman, Burnham admitted the plan was behind schedule: “We may go into the new year, to be honest … December or January, I think we will need to leave that open.” You might question why a 10-year plan could take six months merely to draft, and roll your eyes at Burnham’s casual “we will need to leave that open”. Just as Starmer’s administration seemed incapable of producing any major policy document on time – the Industrial Strategy, the National Security Strategy, the Defence Investment Plan – so too the Burnham government seems to have staked out a position for long-term residence on the back foot. With the 10-year plan, though, there are additional factors of timing. Let us assume, for the purposes of argument, that it is published at the very beginning of 2027. The next general election must be held on or before . So what Burnham will be offering is not so much a 10-year plan as a 2½-year plan with IOUs. It is a constitutional maxim that Parliament cannot bind its successors: no law can be made which is irrevocable. One of the elements of parliamentary sovereignty is that parliament may do as it wishes – it could legislate tomorrow to say that fair is foul, and foul is fair – but the next parliament could enshrine the opposite in statute. Burnham’s boldness should be praised It would be absurdly restrictive to say that no politician could talk about his or her intentions or objectives beyond the last theoretical date for the next general election.