At the first Labour conference since Andy Burnham was elected prime mnister, co-operation and the need to pull together in the same direction formed the bedrock of conversations on the future of the country – including within Burnham’s own address to the conference.
“All together now,” he told delegates. “That’s my rallying call to the country today. When we pull as one, there is nothing we can’t do.”
The themes of co-operation and collective ownership threaded through his plans for sweeping changes across sectors including housing, water, energy and social care. “I will work as hard as I can to get as much cross-party support for our plan for Britain,” he said. “If we can secure that, it will project a message of confidence and stability to markets and the world about Britain’s future direction.”
Burnham left Westminster a decade ago “because of my frustration at its failure to face up to what happened at Hillsborough, its refusal to treat all parts of the country equally and fairly, its capitulation in the face of the social care crisis, so I became an outsider from the Westminster Club,” he noted.
“When I asked the people of Makerfield to support my return, it was not because I missed Westminster so much. It was to come back to change it.”
Labour says these changes will be published in a ‘Plan for Britain’ later this year. The party promises a 10-year programme to give people “more control of the basics, so that we can make it more functional and more power in the hands of people and places to set their own ambitions, and from there, good growth in every postcode, hope in every heart”.
The prime minister’s speech made only one explicit nod to the co-operative movement. Defending the Union against Scottish independence, he described the UK he believes in as “a union of nations that gave trade unions and the co-operative movement to the world, the National Health Service, a country that stood up to fascism, a country of solidarity, not separation”.
Building on this, Burnham said he wants “energy, water, housing back under stronger public control”,
This, he added, will include water legislation repealing “Margaret Thatcher’s ideological ban on public ownership of water companies”, and a publicly owned “Great British Grid” as a new branch of Great British Energy, with the goal of challenging the private sector operators.
Related: What should Andy Burnham do for the co-op sector?
But “where private companies serve the public interest, we will support them”, he said.
On care, Burnham announced a National Care Service to be introduced in the next Parliament, describing “a system in the best traditions of this party, where everyone contributes, and everyone is covered, free at the point of use”.
“Care that is about people, not profit,” he argued.
The care service, he said, would be funded by ending the triple lock on pensions – although this change, likely to prove contentious, will not be made during this Parliament.
On housing, he promised what he called the biggest council house building programme since the post-war era.
The language of place and ownership ran through his growth argument, too. Drawing on his years as Greater Manchester mayor, he promised “more power in the hands of people and places to set their own ambitions”, with a “Number 10 North” driving the plan into every postcode. He also promised to change government procurement so it “backs British industry, as our trade unions have rightly pushed us to do”.
Elsewhere at the conference, Co-operatives UK CEO, Rose Marley, shared the need to work with local government to make it better at sharing power with communities, and how co-operative structures are a solution for this (more on this to follow). This comes on the back of a £10m Co-operative Development Programme announced by government to help realise Labour’s ambition to double the size of the co-operative and mutual economy – and the launch of Co-operative UK’s Co-operative and Mutuals Economy Report which shows the sector generates £241bn annually.
And Joe Fortune, who left his post as Co-op Party general secretary to take up the same role at Labour, described how co-op politics “has taught me the importance of collective action and collective responsibility”.
“I want to take this opportunity to thank the Co-operative Party for all it has done for me. And thank the staff team for their commitment over many years,” he said. “Together we have built a Co-op Party which has stronger membership, elected representation and finances than ever before. I now want to bring those lessons to this vital role at this vital time.”
