The prime minister has told members of his party that Welsh Labour may have lost sight of some of the principles of devolution before it was thrown out of power in a historic election defeat.
On Saturday morning Andy Burnham addressed the first Welsh Labour conference since May’s Senedd election.
He suggested the previous Labour government did not do enough to pass powers down to communities, and said it was “hard” to accept the party was no longer in power after 27 years of running the Welsh government.
In a subdued speech, the UK Labour leader said he wanted to see “one Labour team” where “everyone” was “signed up and on the same page.”
Burnham spoke ahead of the publication of a review of what went wrong at the election.
Since he became prime minister he has been lobbying the Welsh government to devolve more powers to local councils.
“Somewhere along the way perhaps we lost sight of some of the principles that drove devolution in the first place.
“We probably stopped listening as much as we should have, and actually stopped driving power down into every Welsh postcode which is what the vision to me really should always have been about – about people and places.”
He said the party would accept its defeat and “come back stronger” with a “vision for a stronger Wales in a fairer United Kingdom.”
Burnham said he wanted to achieve the sense of a “one Labour team for Wales” where the party is “pulling in the same direction”.
“Where I’m pulling with you and not creating problems for you or going against what Ken or colleagues want to achieve.
“We will put forward a vision for communities up and down Wales, as well as giving Wales a stronger national voice.”
Addressing the event at Venue Cymru in Llandudno, Burnham said he loved “everything about Wales”.
He said his last visit to Wales – to Aberfan – left the “biggest mark”.
Referencing the fight for justice in the years after the disaster, Burnham said he wanted a “country where all people and all places are treated fairly and with dignity”.
He said his vision for the country is a “reindustrialised nation with revitalised high streets”.
Burnham said Labour should be “immensely proud” of the things it achieved in Wales – including free school meals, free prescription and the creation of Transport for Wales.
The prime minister said he wanted to show how “being in the UK is good for Wales because of the partnership that we can develop together”.
Burnham said he had put the full devolution of employment support on the table with the Welsh government.
The new head of English rugby league has backed a call for Prime Minister Andy Burnham to approve a £30m five-year community funding plan for the sport.
Former England international Jon Wilkin has appealed directly to Burnham and Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, both rugby league fans, to pledge government money to a rugby league-based social impact project.
Ian Nolan, the new chief executive of the Rugby Football League, has supported Wilkin’s plea, issued on BBC Radio 5 Live’s Rugby League show on Monday.
That initiative is designed to help create sporting, educational and employment opportunities in Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, and is being led by the Australian Rugby League Commission – the country’s rugby league governing body.
Wilkin has argued that a similar plan for the north of England would benefit deprived communities.
He said: “Australia has recognised rugby league’s potential as a vehicle for social change, committing hundreds of millions to developing communities, especially across the Pacific. Why shouldn’t Britain show the same ambition for the north?
“The infrastructure already exists, the clubs, the foundations, the school and community relationships are already well established. What’s missing is a coordinated strategy and meaningful government investment.
“The ask would be simple: For the government to establish a £30m five-year Northern Rugby League social impact partnership, bringing together the RFL, professional clubs, community foundations, local authorities and government departments.
“The programme would target disadvantaged northern communities.”
Nolan, a former Manchester United executive who took up his role with the RFL on 1 October, suggested the social benefits of such an initiative would be felt more quickly because rugby league clubs are already established in their communities.
“When the government normally invest in community hubs and new things to generate something, they tend to be brand new,” he said. “And it’s really difficult then to attract people to go there because it’s a new habit, it’s a new place.
“But rugby clubs are already established in the most deprived towns in the UK. And that’s the difference. People already go there. Families already rely on them for even just moving around.”
BBC Sport has contacted the Department for Culture, Media and Sport for comment.
More than 350 sportspeople – including Olympians Dina Asher-Smith and Tom Daley – have signed a letter to the prime minister calling on him to meet former sprinter Beth Dobbin and commit to increased funding towards ME research.
Dobbin, 32, recently revealed in an interview with BBC Sport she had been diagnosed with “life-decimating” ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and as a result spends more than 22 hours a day in bed.
ME is a chronic, fluctuating disease, causing symptoms such as sleep problems, issues with thinking and memory, pain, and severe persistent fatigue that does not improve with rest, and more. It has no known cure or specific treatment.
More than 400,000 people in the UK are thought to have ME, though the true figure could exceed one million, with severity ranging from people able to work or study to those requiring round-the-clock care and tube feeding.
On 21 October, Dobbin wrote to the prime minister but did not receive a response – and she has now been backed by athletes across sport.
“For many of my team-mates, I dropped off the face of the earth four years ago when I developed severe ME,” she said.
“I’ve been taken aback and extremely touched by how many of them – and so many others in the sports world – have jumped at the chance to help by signing this letter. It means so much to me.
“I hope that, with all of them behind me, Andy Burnham is listening and will commit to doing what’s needed to deliver real change for a community that has been neglected for so long.”
Among the 360 sporting figures to have signed the letter are Everton manager David Moyes, his United States women’s counterpart Emma Hayes, and former Chelsea and England centre-back Millie Bright. Athletes Laura Muir, Eilish McColgan and Adam Gemili are among 114 Olympians and Paralympians to have added their support.
The letter calls on Burnham to “level the playing field” for funding into ME research with that for other illnesses “to give hope to the many affected that something is being done about this life-destroying, much-ignored illness and its spiralling impact”.
It says: “The disease has received extremely low levels of research funding compared to other conditions. Between 2019 to 2024, UK government research funders committed just £6.6m in funding for research into ME, compared to £79.1m for Parkinson’s and £496.4m for dementia.
“Prior to this, biomedical research funding was almost non-existent. As a result of the lack of research funding, there are no approved treatments.”
The prime minister has ruled out financial reparations despite longstanding Caribbean demands ahead of Commonwealth leaders’ summit.
Published On 31 Oct 202631 Oct 2026
Britain’s prime minister has opened the door to a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, while ruling out financial reparations.
Andy Burnham set out his position in a Guardian article on Friday, ahead of a Commonwealth leaders’ summit in Antigua and Barbuda on Sunday.
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The Commonwealth comprises 56 countries, mostly former British colonies, whose Caribbean members have long pressed Britain to acknowledge slavery’s legacy and offer redress.
Burnham offered structured talks with countries and campaign groups affected by slavery, including discussions on whether Britain should issue an official state apology.
“Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process and I am open to them,” Burnham wrote.
He expressed “sorrow and regret” for the suffering of millions of enslaved people, but rejected calls for financial compensation.
“I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part,” he said.
The stance maintains the position of previous British governments, despite his willingness to discuss an apology.
Instead, he proposed an international effort to ease the debt burden on poorer nations by extending repayment periods and cutting interest rates.
Burnham also said that former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will assist with the initiative, adding that more than 40 percent of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries spend more on debt interest than on healthcare.
Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley welcomed the opening for talks but reiterated her government’s position on reparations.
In a statement reported by the Guardian on Saturday, she said cooperation could also cover healthcare, education, development and fairer borrowing terms.
Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne, who is hosting the summit, welcomed the debt initiative and promises of cooperation on renewable energy.
CARICOM, the regional bloc of Caribbean countries, has drawn up a 10-point plan for reparations.
Its demands go beyond payments to include an apology, support for health and education, as well as measures to address the economic and social damage left by slavery.
The dispute surfaced at the last Commonwealth summit in Samoa in 2024, when leaders called for discussions about reparations, despite opposition from then Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
King Charles III will also attend the summit. However, Buckingham Palace has said he will not issue a formal apology for slavery during his trip, despite calls from countries in the region.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said he is “open” to the possibility of the UK issuing a formal apology for its role in the transatlantic slave trade, but has ruled out considering financial reparations.
Burham said he wanted a “dialogue with those affected by the slave trade” and was open to “calls for an apology”.
He dismissed the idea of paying financial reparations, saying they were “not the right answer”.
The comments come ahead of a Commonwealth leaders summit in the Caribbean next week, which Burnham will attend. Caribbean nations have renewed calls for the UK to apologise for its role in the slave trade, and for reparations, as King Charles III tours the region.
Burham described the transatlantic slave trade, when Africans were trafficked to the Americas, as a “brutal and barbaric violation” and said Britain must “face up to the past”.
The British government has never formally apologised for slavery or offered to pay reparations. Burnham has stuck with the policy of his predecessors, and has stopped short of offering any consideration of reparation payments.
“I do not think that British people today can be held liable for historical wrongs, however heinous, that happened in a different age under different laws and in which they played no personal part,” Burnham wrote in his piece for the Guardian, external.
He said Commonwealth countries had for years been asking for an “honest conversation”. Burnham said he wanted to offer a “structured dialogue” adding: “Listening to calls for a formal apology on behalf of the British state will form an important part of this process. I am open to them.”
A government source told the BBC this was “morally the right thing to do”.
Downing Street believes it is in the UK’s interest to strengthen the Commonwealth, in a world where China and Russia are seeking to exert influence.
Only this week, President Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa summit in Moscow.
The prime minister says he would welcome an “honest discussion” about the prospect of returning to free movement between the UK and European Union.
Speaking to the Sunday Times, Andy Burnham said a new relationship with Brussels could include full EU membership or joining the single market, requiring free movement.
Asked about Burnham’s remarks, Angela Rayner told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg “you can’t take anything off the table”, adding the prime minister was saying “we’ve got to be pragmatic to get the best deal for Britain and he wants to have the conversation.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch responded that the prime minister “hasn’t thought this through”, while Reform UK’s Robert Jenrick dismissed the idea as “mad”.
Migration dominated debate during the 2016 Brexit campaign, with the Leave campaign raising issues about rules allowing any EU citizen to move to the UK.
Burnham has previously committed to Labour’s 2024 election manifesto which ruled out a return of free movement, single market membership or a customs union.
He has said that any changes would require a mandate at a general election, would is due by 2029.
“I think you have to have a very factual, quite evidence-based debate about this,” he told the Sunday Times, external, adding he believed the type of migration had changed from revolving door movement of young people.
“Revolving door migration where people would come and then go back is different,” he said. “The balance of migration has changed, hasn’t it, since then? I think we’ve just got to have an honest discussion about those things.”
But he stressed: “I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.”
The Schengen Agreement allows passport-free travel across EU countries. The UK was able to keep the pound when it was an EU member, but the bloc has pushed new members to adopt the Euro.
His remarks were made ahead of an EU summit on 20 November in Brussels, where the prime minister is expected to pitch options for a reset of relations with the bloc.
On Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Rayner said she wanted to see the best possible deal with the European Union, which may well involve concessions.
“What the prime minister is saying now, and what I want, is that we have an honest conversation about the facts of what the trade-offs are to get the best deal for Britain going forward,” she said.
“The frustration for me in the previous debate we had when we had the referendum is that a lot of those facts didn’t get the airtime… So I would like us to have an honest conversation about what the trade-offs could be and then put that to the people at a general election.”
Writing on X, Badenoch dismissed it as “yet another example of Burnham’s foot in mouth syndrome”.
She added: “Most people who voted for Brexit did so because they didn’t want free movement. Too many politicians have failed to understand the significance and impact of immigration on communities.”
Conservative MP and former chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who backed Remain, warned the Brexit debate was “incredibly divisive” and insisted the current Brexit deal can still be made to work.
“I was at the top of a government that was paralysed for several years while we were trying to wrestle with the implications of that vote and I think, having made the decision, we should stick with it and make the most of it – I think we can make it a success,” he told Kuenssberg.
Pointing to the one million young people not in work or training, he added: “Surely our priority in that situation is to get those jobs filled by the young people we have here instead of parking them on welfare.
“Which is why I think it’s astonishing to lead on the issue of free movement… Something that is actually going to stop young people here getting jobs.”
But Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper told Kuenssberg she believed allowing freedom of movement would be “a really good thing for growth” and pushed for the UK to rejoin the single market, the customs union, and also be involved in the bloc’s defence pact.
The UK currently has “the worst of both worlds” on immigration, she said, as it was excluded from the EU’s “new asylum pact with biometric data” that could be used to “tackle the small boats crisis”.
Reform UK’s economy spokesperson Robert Jenrick told Kuenssberg he had never believed freedom of movement “was a good thing”, despite supporting the Remain position before the 2016 referendum when he was a Conservative MP.
“I think it’s completely mad, the idea that this country needs more immigration,” he said, claiming data shows mass migration “has been a disaster for working people, for Brits”.
“The last thing they want is their wages being undercut by a load of low wage, low-skilled migrants from overseas,” he added.
Burnham announced the decision to approve the drilling of the Jackdaw gas field earlier this week.
Jackdaw is situated 150 miles (241km) east of Aberdeen and is operated by Adura, a joint venture between Shell and Norwegian state energy firm Equinor.
Ministers said the first gas could be produced by the end of this month, helping heat millions of homes, and also announced the creation of a new energy wealth fund.
Environmental campaigners say the decision would hamper efforts to tackle climate change and make “no meaningful difference” to UK energy security.
Based on official forecasts for the amount of gas the UK will need over the next decade, that suggests Jackdaw has the potential to meet around 1.6% of total projected national gas demand between 2026 and 2036.
Operators say it could be connected to the Great British gas network within weeks and could produce gas for the next 11 years.
Trump responded to the decision on Friday, but appeared to confuse oil and gas.
He said: “They’re opening up the North Sea oil. I’ve been after them to do that for two years.”
Trump added: “Andy is getting it done, and I guess it’s against the liberal principle, but he knows what’s right. It’s going to make UK a very wealthy country.”
Earlier this week, on Wednesday, Trump said the decision was “great news for the wealth and prosperity” of the UK.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump urged the UK to go “full blast” and called the North Sea “one of the greatest and most prosperous areas of oil in the world”.
A decision is yet to be taken on whether production can begin at Rosebank, the UK’s largest known untapped oil field, which is located off the coast of Shetland in the North Atlantic.
A sentence we never expected to say. Tonight, PM Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham will make their debut on the show, sitting at 10 Downing Street. The programme airs in aid of Stand Up To Cancer, and Andy is no stranger to charitable causes. Throughout his tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy often threw himself into work, helping those around him.
The decision to deploy RAF jets to defend Saudi Arabia is described by the Times as an “expansion of the UK’s role in the conflict in Yemen”, external. A defence source tells the paper that “if Houthi drones or missiles come over the border” then British jets will “take them out”. The Telegraph’s verdict is: “Better late than never”.
London, United Kingdom – There was a moment towards the end of Andy Burnham’s conference speech in Liverpool that, through silence, spoke volumes.
The new prime minister and Labour leader fell quiet.
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For 20 seconds he stood, saying nothing. He hadn’t forgotten his words. He was gathering his emotions for a passage of the speech he hadn’t been able to make it through in rehearsals without crying.
Burnham’s father had died just a couple of weeks before, and this was the section where he’d talk about it.
As the audience realised what was coming they stood, applauding, and urging him on with shouts of “Come on, lad!’ and “Come on, Andy!”
Thanking them, he composed himself and continued.
Conference speeches are theatre, and contemporary British political standards require that a leader be relatable. But there’s little doubt that Andy Burnham handled this moment with an emotional register that struck many as genuine.
His predecessor Keir Starmer sometimes came across as wooden, almost robotic and uncomfortable in front of cameras. Burnham, the seventh prime minister in 10 years, is more emotional.
He talks big ideas and grand solutions and relishes the opportunity to communicate.
In the vibes-denominated currency of modern political discourse, this matters.
The polls speak for themselves. Politico’s Poll of Polls had the Labour Party retake top spot shortly after Burnham became PM – a position it has not relinquished since. At the end of September, Ipsos found Andy Burnham to be the only politician with a positive net favourability rating.
YouGov’s polling also judges him the most popular politician in the UK at the moment.
But to keep up, Burnham must deliver tangible change before the next general election. Unless he calls one early, that will be 2029.
According to political analyst Sam Freedman, “So many in Westminster keep coming back to an early election, despite Burnham ruling it out … No one can quite figure out how Burnham keeps the hope vibe going for three more years with relatively little visible progress.”
‘Going back to what Labour was in the 50s’
In the Welsh town of Port Talbot, terraces of workers’ cottages cluster beside the UK’s largest steelworks.
Like much of Wales, Port Talbot did vote Labour for a century – until elections for the Senedd Cymru or Welsh Parliament in May.
Labour was beaten to an unprecedented third place behind Plaid Cymru’s nationalists, and the anti-immigration Reform UK.
But that was before Burnham took over.
Myles Lewis, who organises social walks for the town’s elderly, told Al Jazeera that Labour had not convinced people on immigration, and Starmer’s communication wasn’t good enough.
“[But now], it’s kind of going back to what Labour was in the 50s and 60s, where they actually looked after the working-class people. I do believe Andy Burnham can get there because I think he has the interests of the working-class people.”
Prime Minister Andy Burnham and his wife Marie-France van Heel wave as they leave Buckingham Palace after an audience with King Charles III, where he was invited to become Prime Minister and form a new government on July 20, 2026 in London, England [Aaron Chown/Pool/Getty Images]
In his first weeks in power, Burnham delivered a quick flurry of eye-catching, domestic, cost-of-living-focused policies.
He capped bus fares, cut the value-added tax (VAT) on electricity bills, and cut business rates for pubs.
He said that he would end street homelessness, reindustrialise the country, take services back into public control, and start the biggest build-out of social housing since World War II.
The mayor of Greater Manchester for nine years, Burnham supports the devolution of powers from Westminster to the UK’s nations and regions.
In July, he announced mayors could keep a share of business rates from April 2027 and of income tax from 2028.
And his conference speech in September set out the contours of some big political battles to come, including a national social care service, free at the point of use, paid for by changing the UK pensions’ triple lock from 2030. It would arrive next parliament. Burnham also pitched a national commission on electoral reform, with a manifesto commitment to overhaul the voting system. And he delivered a blunt verdict on Brexit: that it “has done more harm than good”. He wouldn’t rule out an in-out referendum, or a pledge for the UK to rejoin the European Union, in Labour’s next manifesto, he said.
On foreign affairs, there is less blue water between Burnham and his predecessors.
When he travelled to Ukraine in August, the UK’s new prime minister came with a headline-grabbing gift – British know-how to build the long-range SCALP missile. He was the fourth British prime minister to visit Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and pledge steadfast support.
On Gaza, he has said the Labour government “didn’t get it right” and should have called for a ceasefire earlier. And in September, the Burnham government announced a sanctions package against illegal West Bank settlements.
But there has been no genocide declaration, and no full arms embargo against Israel. And Burnham hasn’t overturned the Starmer government’s proscription of the Palestine Action protest group as a “terrorist” organisation.
Defence spending is also a looming problem.
The government’s formal defence pledge is 3.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2035, and Burnham has declined to say whether he’d pay for it with tax rises or welfare cuts.
John Healey, who resigned as the UK’s defence secretary in June over underfunding, is now chancellor of the exchequer, and will not commit to the 3-percent-by-2030 target he set himself.
Burnham’s first budget comes at the end of this month. A full spending review follows next year. Much will be clearer after these.
His biggest pledges – reindustrialisation, control of public services, a new social care system – are expensive.
Burnham certainly has the vibes. The public likes them, for now. The budget will show whether he can afford them.
