Andy Burnham has said he will back abolishing first-past-the post and will scrap the state pensions triple lock from 2030 in his first major speech as prime minister.
Addressing the conference in Liverpool, Mr Burnham said he would remove the link to average earnings to fund a new National Care Service — creating a so-called double lock — in a highly controversial move which will divide the party.
He also announced plans for a new national commission on electoral reform, warning that Britain’s current system of voting was not fit for purpose.
The prime minister delivered his speech to a packed conference hall, becoming visibly emotional as he talked about his late father Roy and vowing to govern in a way which would make him proud.
After vowing to “draw a line on a decade of division”, he announced he will give councils the power to take over poor quality homes if landlords refuse to improve them.
The government will also end the ban on public ownership of water companies, paving the way for the nationalisation of firms that do not “serve the public interest”, the PM said.
Electoral reform 'not my priority' - skills minister
Electoral reform “isn’t top of my list of priorities”, skills minister Baroness Jacqui Smith has said following the prime minister’s speech to Labour Party conference.
Lady Smith praised Andy Burnham’s willingness “to take on big issues” and work towards a national care service may be the thing that comes to define his premiership, but suggested she was less keen on electoral reform.
She said: “He’s willing to make an argument, and that is, I think, refreshing.
“He had a clear direction for the country, and it felt like being properly led, and that’s what’s really important.”
Asked if there were any elements of the speech she may not have agreed on, she said: “Electoral reform isn’t top of my list of priorities. Good luck to the commission. I shall be interested with what it comes out with.
“But you know, respect to Andy, he has also long argued for that – it is something that has got a lot of support in the hall, probably a considerable amount of support in the country, and fair enough to him for trying to find a way through it.”
Former Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn described it as an “inspirational speech” but also suggested he was unsure about electoral reform, saying: “We’ll see what the Commission on Electoral Reform produces”.
Louise Haigh 'moved to tears' by Burnham's speech
Louise Haigh has said she was “moved to tears” by Andy Burnham’s speech as he paid to tribute to his father who died just a few weeks ago.
Speaking to Sky News, the first secretary of state said the prime minister put forward a “big, brave, bold, honest and ambitious plan for the country” after he outlined his social care reforms.
She insisted that pensions “will always be protected”, but reforms would be a “massive down payment on the creation of the National Care Service.
“We'll have to start building up to that, that full-fat version of it. You know, the NHS wasn't built overnight.”
How much will the end of triple lock cost pensioners – and save the government?
Davey compares Burnham’s speech to Oasis’s ‘Definitely, Maybe’
Ed Davey said Andy Burnham’s Labour conference speech was like an Oasis album title, Definitely Maybe, as he warned of “a total absence of action” from the prime minister.
The Liberal Democrat leader said: “Andy Burnham spent years telling the country what he would do if he were in power. Now that he is sitting in No 10, what we got was a lot of Definitely Maybe and a total absence of action today.
“Families struggling with a broken social care system cannot wait until after another election and it can’t be funded from the pockets of our poorest pensioners.
“Communities blighted by sewage cannot wait yet another decade to finally stop profit trumping morals in our water industry.
“This prime minister had a historic opportunity to start to fix our broken voting system and rebuild our relationship with Europe, but everything remains a maybe. This looks too much like Starmerism with a veneer of panache.”
Elsewhere, in a letter to the prime minister, Sir Ed wrote: “Fixing social care is too important and too urgent to leave until after the next election, and I am disappointed to read that is now your plan.
“Moreover, it is surely wrong to say the price of proper social care must be scrapping the pensions triple lock, which has itself been an essential tool in the fight against pensioner poverty.”
Analysis: Burnham social care promise is not a yet plan
In 2019, Tory PM Boris Johnson stood on the steps of Downing Street and promised to “fix the crisis in social care once and for all.”
That promise never materialised, with a service still now described as “threadbare”.
Seven years later, Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised to introduce a new National Care Service, comparable to the NHS, in the next election manifesto.
Speaking with The Independent, Simon Bottery, senior fellow for social care for the King’s Fund, said Mr Burnham’s Labour Conference speech was a “big moment” and "very big promise" for adult social care, and a bigger promise than Johnson’s in 2019.
However, Mr Bottery said: “This is still a promise rather than a plan”.
Alongside other experts, Mr Bottery has pointed out that at the moment there is little clarity on what this new care service would offer, how it would be funded, who would benefit.
“At the moment we really don’t know very much about that at all, so there’s an immense amount of work to be done in the next three years to get the point where there is a credible place to enter a general election…So understanding whether a national care service would work for working-age adults as well as older people, I think, is one really basic factor.”
The PM’s speech focused on the experience of pensioners. However, a King’s Fund analysis from April this year shows roughly the same is spent on working-age adult social care compared to over-65s.
According to a King’s Fund analysis data shows in 2024-25, local authorities spent similar proportions of money on long-term support for working-age adults (£11.5 billion) and older people (£12.0 billion) in 2024/25, compared with 2023/24.
The PM addressed the social care workforce directly in his speech; however, there was no specific detail on improvements to their pay and working conditions.
A fair pay agreement for workers in the sector is due to be introduced in 2028, and so there will be some improvements.
Simon Bottery said it is a significant investment of £ 0.5 billion, but it is not enough to bring in parity between the social care and NHS workforce.
Burnham speech ‘put a bit of hope back into my heart, MP says
Patrick Hurley, MP for Southport, told The Independent that he was “blown away” by his party leader’s speech.
He said: “It's fantastic to see a bit of optimism, a bit of hope.“You know, it's not just the big things, although there were a lot of big things in there: the reform of social care, the electoral reform that he's looking to promise, the changes to pensions, and the changes to social care.
“But also the little things. He's saying that, you know, as of this Thursday, in two days' time, take VAT off some energy bills and make sure that people feel the benefits in their pockets.
“There's that mix of big things, little things, and things that are benefiting the country, and really it's put a bit of hope back in my heart and I am very, very pleased to see it.”
Mr Hurley said he found Mr Burnham’s mentions of the experiences of his father, who lived in a care home while suffering from Alzheimer’s, very moving.
He believes it gets to the core of the prime minister’s motivations in politics.
He said: “It's one of the reasons so many of us come into politics is we've got our personal stories, we've got our things that we want to get across.
“And it just shines through with Andy that, for him, improving the country, it's not some sort of technocratic managerial process. He means it, he feels it in his bones, and I think the public can see that.”
Analysis: Burnham has just delivered the most revolutionary vision of any PM since Thatcher
When Andy Burnham said he wanted to tear up the last 40 years of political consensus he meant it, says political editor David Maddox:
We were promised a dramatic speech with big announcements unlike anything we had heard before. And that is what we got from Andy Burnham.
The prime minister currently has no electoral mandate beyond winning a by-election in Makerfield but he has just laid out an agenda more radical and revolutionary than anything seen since Margaret Thatcher tore up the post-war consensus in the 80s.
Whether it’s nationalisation of housing, water and energy, electoral reform, ending the triple lock on pensions, or a national social care service, Mr Burnham has torn up the playbook of the consensus of 40 years. And he has bet his future on the next election manifesto – which will be completely different to the one Keir Starmer put to the nation in 2024.
The cost-of-living crisis and Brexit has brought about a desire in him to be bold and different to what has happened before.
Andy Burnham's promises are an 'ode to the past', says Tory leader
Andy Burnham’s conference speech was “just an ode to the past”, Kemi Badnoch said, as she claimed “more tax rises are inevitable” under the Labour Party.
The Tory leader accused the prime minister of wanting to take the UK back to the 1970s, saying he “delivered a speech for the Labour Party, not the country.”
“Nothing Burnham announced today will do anything to fix Britain’s long-term problems. He had no plan to fix our stagnant economy. No plan to fund defence. No plan to sort out the spiralling welfare bill, beyond more government schemes.
“Burnham wants to take Britain back to the 1970s, a time of more government control, more trade union control and no economic growth. There is a reason our country took a different course after that decade.
“His proposal to change the triple lock is already falling apart under scrutiny, and it won’t generate enough savings to fund a nationalised care system for another two decades, which means more tax rises are inevitable.
“Britain does not need to recreate the politics of the 1970s. It needs a government prepared to take the difficult decisions, back those who work and build businesses, and look confidently to the future.”
Burnham talks to care workers in emotional address: ‘You are not invisible to me’
Farage accuses Burnham of 'launching an offensive against our elderly'
Nigel Farage has accused Andy Burnham of “launching an offensive against our elderly” after the prime minister revealed plans to scrap the state pension triple lock to pay for social care.
The Reform UK leader, who was previously ambivalent about whether his party would keep the policy, said: “By potentially scrapping the triple lock, Andy Burnham will abdicate his responsibility to British pensioners.
“Instead of cutting our bloated benefits bill, stopping migrants from accessing benefits, or slashing foreign aid, he’s considering launching an offensive against our elderly.
“If he is so desperate to pick a fight with pensioners, he should get on with it, call a general election now, and let the public decide.
“Reform UK will always protect our pensioners and maintain the triple lock.”
In a post on X, he said: “I will cut foreign aid, migrant welfare, welfare fraud, and mad net zero spending. Andy Burnham will cut your pension.”