What would ‘change’ look like if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister?

Andy Burnham’s victory sets him up for a battle for Downing Street. Photograph: Gary Roberts/SOPA Images/Shutterstock View image in fullscreen Andy Burnham’s victory sets him up for a battle for Downing Street. Photograph: Gary Roberts/SOPA Images/Shutterstock What would ‘change’ look like if Andy Burnham becomes prime minister? From public ownership, to devolution and the cost of living, the policies of the potential Labour leadership challenger will face intense scrutiny UK politics live – latest updates Andy Burnham’s victory in Makerfield sets up a battle for Downing Street. Allies of the outgoing Greater Manchester mayor want him to be installed as prime minister as quickly and painlessly as possible, while those close to Keir Starmer want the Labour leader to fight on. If he does become prime minister, Burnham will be expected to deliver on the “change” he promised after his win on Thursday night. But what would that look like, and what policies would his government be likely to pursue? 1. Public ownership of utilities Burnham’s allies talk about overseeing a 10-year project to take large parts of Britain’s water and energy sectors into public control. In reality, that process will start with Thames Water, the stricken utility over which creditors are currently haggling. Earlier this week the environment secretary, Emma Reynolds, made clear her opposition to a proposed £10bn rescue deal for the company, bringing it one stage closer to being nationalised. Other companies could follow, including South East Water, which has come under fire for overseeing multiple service outages. Eventually Burnham’s allies want to bring energy transmission and supply companies, possibly including National Grid, into public control. But that is likely to take a much longer period of time, and could potentially cost billions of pounds in compensation for investors. 2. Cost of living support Some of those close to the new Makerfield MP want him to focus first on easing the cost of living for many voters. They talk about heavy state intervention to reduce people’s bills, including a temporary rent freeze and moving levies off energy bills and into general taxation instead. This however could involve raising taxes to help pay for the extra government spending – forcing him into some difficult political choices. Burnham has already promised to stick to Labour’s campaign pledges not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT. And during the byelection campaign he went even further, saying he would consider cutting some employers’ national insurance contributions, and proposed reducing business rates for pubs. That leaves Burnham with relatively little room to raise money elsewhere, although one option could be to raise rates of capital gains tax, as recently advocated by Wes Streeting, the former health secretary and potential leadership rival. 3. Devolution Burnham said on Thursday night: “People here have voted for change, they have voted for more power for th