Burnham scraps digital ID scheme to cut energy bills
Andy Burnham used his first two days as PM to cut VAT on electricity bills and pledge £340m to end rough sleeping.
Andy Burnham pledged £340m to end rough sleeping and cut VAT on electricity bills in his first two days as prime minister this week.
Digital ID scheme scrapped: two policies, two days Burnham became prime minister on Monday, taking over from Keir Starmer as the seventh person to hold the office in a decade. His first act was a visit to The Passage, a homelessness charity in Victoria, before going to Buckingham Palace.
On Tuesday, chairing his first Cabinet meeting, he cut VAT on domestic electricity bills from 1 October, worth around £45 off the average £1,862 annual bill. It is funded by scrapping the £1.8bn digital ID scheme introduced under Starmer last September, a scheme that drew a petition of roughly three million signatures against it before Burnham axed it outright.
What it means for people sleeping rough
The £340m rough sleeping fund is meant to buy 1,200 homes and deliver intensive support to at least 3,000 people, under a Housing First model that gives people permanent homes before addressing addiction or mental health.
Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, called it “absolutely fantastic” that Burnham prioritised homelessness “just minutes into his new job,” and welcomed the shift “away from a series of expensive temporary fixes.” Rick Henderson of Homeless Link said the ambition was “the kind of ambition our members on the frontline of the homelessness crisis have been demanding,” but warned it needs “more comprehensive systemic changes” behind it. Bianca Robinson, chief executive of CEO Sleepout, put it more plainly: “For those sleeping rough tonight, words are not enough.”
The record he has to answer for
Burnham made a similar promise as mayor of Greater Manchester. Official Greater Manchester Combined Authority figures for 2025 show rough sleeping rose during his mayoralty, after early gains.
He has also kept Starmer’s fiscal rules and military spending increases in place, and made no commitment to public ownership. Former Labour MP Laura Pidcock said that for all “the talk of hope and change, there are exactly the same set of struggles on our hands today as there were yesterday.” Writing in the Morning Star, Claudia Webbe said Burnham’s acceptance speech “promised everything and named nothing.” TUC general secretary Paul Nowak welcomed “an end to the broken economic status quo” but, like Unison’s Andrea Egan, said the diagnosis needs policies to match, including a wealth tax and public ownership of key utilities.
Burnham says a full ten-year plan for Britain will follow later this year. Until then, the test is the one Robinson set on his first morning in office: not what he promised, but who gets a bed tonight.
