The government’s flagship 10-year plan will emerge by mid-December, Andy Burnham has told MPs, having previously raised the possibility that it might be delayed until next year.
Quizzed by Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions, Burnham told the Conservative leader the plan would be unveiled before the Commons Christmas recess, which begins on 17 December.
Responding to a question by Badenoch as to whether the plan was being drawn up in part by external consultants, Burnham did not answer directly, but said: “I did walk up Downing Street promising a 10-year plan for this country because I am determined to give this country the stability that they failed to provide.
“I am determined to give the leadership that this country needs, and I can say to her, we will present our plan for Britain to this house before it rises for the Christmas recess.”
In his first speech as PM in July, Burnham said that “later this year” he would “bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be”.
But in an interview with the Economist at the Commonwealth heads of government summit earlier this month, he said the timetable might slip. “We may go into the new year, to be honest ... December or January, I think we will need to leave that open,” he said.
Some Labour MP have seperately raised concerns that the plan might not be radical or detailed enough.
MPs in Labour’s re-industrialisation research group, many of whom represent “red wall” seats that helped the party win the last election, are meeting the Cabinet Office minister,, on Wednesday, to express particular worries about the fate of Britain’s heavy industries.
Elsewhere in his exchanges with Badenoch, Burnham rejected her charge that the government was rudderless, noting that the second part of the Milburn report into young people and worklessness was being published next week.
Pressed on when the next spending review would take place and when a decision would be made on the Rosebank oil field, Burnham refused to say, but hit back at what he said was the Conservatives’ lack of interest in cost of living issues.
Burnham said: “We are facing the big issues, and we will lay that out in the 10-year plan before this country. This country was going backwards under the party opposite. We are leading it forward. We are bringing people back together. We are giving people hope. She is voting against the help that we’ve just announced in the budget.”
The PM also criticised plans Badenoch set out on Tuesday to cut £36bn a year from the social security budget, saying: “Does she accept that so many of the people affected by what what she announced are working people, people whose incomes will be hit hard in a cost of living crisis?
“I think the honourable lady needs to answer as to why she is making the cost of living crisis harder for people by the cut she’s just announced.”
Badenoch replied that the government was “totally adrift”.
“They need consultants to tell them what to think, they need civil servants to tell them what to do,” she sad. “So we are left with a do-nothing budget, a spending review delayed, a 10-year plan outsourced.”
