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Speaking to PoliticsHome in Makerfield on Friday, where he is standing as Labour’s by-election candidate later this month, the Greater Manchester mayor said: “We’ve all got to be concerned with getting the welfare bill down.

“I don’t think there’s any debate about that, to be honest, it’s how you do it.”

He argued that the best way to do so was through a more localised approach, rather than cuts made in Westminster.

“It’s an overhaul that the Whitehall system can’t really make,” he said. “It’s an argument actually for dealing with this in a much more devolved way than it is currently done.”

Burnham – who confirmed in a BBC debate on Thursday that he wants to replace Prime Minister Keir Starmer in No 10 if his bid to return to the House of Commons is successful – told PoliticsHome that local and regional authorities should be empowered to give out-of-work people the support they need for mental health problems.

“We don’t have a system that is set up to look and really get to the heart of why somebody isn’t able to sustain themselves in the labour market, and that’s been the journey that I’ve been on as mayor of Greater Manchester.

“But if you do give people what they’re looking for, I think you can support more people into work,” he said.

Welfare has emerged as a thorny issue for the Labour government since being elected in July 2024.

Starmer tried to introduce benefits reforms last year but was forced to abandon the plans by a major Labour backbench rebellion.

Private messages published by the government earlier this week showed Work and Pensions Secretary complaining to former US ambassador Peter Mandelson that “every meeting” he had with Labour MPs was a discussion about “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”.

A new report authored by former health secretary Alan Milburn found that the total annual cost to the taxpayer of just under one million young people not being in employment, education or training (NEET) is £125bn per year.

Speaking to PoliticsHome, Burnham described the report as a “very significant intervention”.

“I’ve contributed to it, and I think Alan is interested in what we’ve done because we’ve taken a different approach to supporting people into work.

“And this is the thing: The DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) system, I don’t think does do that, because it’s a very narrow approach in this day and age.”

He continued: “The reasons why people, particularly young people, may not be in work would be related to mental health or the housing situation or the debt they may be facing, a whole range of other things that are going on.”

Burnham criticised previous governments for encouraging more than 50 per cent of people to go to university.

“The obsession with the university route began with the Blair government, but then was very much continued by Gove in his reforms, [and] left 50 per cent or more of young people, particularly in an area like this [thinking], well, what about me?

In an interview with The House magazine in Makerfield, Burnham said he is “not going to hold back” on early reform to the House of Lords if he becomes prime minister.

“I can’t justify, personally, 800-plus members of the House of Lords. I don’t think – with great respect to many people in it, because I have true great respect, because there’s some incredible people in there – what the country spends on the House of Lords is actually justified by what the output is,” he said.

Andy Burnham at the launch of his campaign as Labour’s candidate for the Makerfield by-election, 22 May 2026 (PA Images / Alamy)

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The Greater Manchester mayor was speaking at a campaign stop on Friday in the Makerfield constituency, where he is Labour’s parliamentary candidate in a by-election. If he wins on 18 June, he has confirmed that he hopes to replace Keir Starmer in No 10.

Asked by The House whether he still backs turning the Lords into a ‘Senate of Regions and Nations’, with seats for metro mayors included in it, he stood by his support for overhauling the Upper Chamber and said it should be “the first place to look” for cutting “the cost of politics”.

“I wouldn’t rule out quite an early change, and possibly the 2029 general election or beyond, because I’ve long believed that there’s a first stage of Lords reform, which is indirect election that could be linked to a general election, and I just think we can’t delay this any longer,” Burnham said.

“I don’t think we can justify half of our national legislature being unelected. I think this is something that is, in many ways, quite scandalous.

“If you think about this constituency and the feeling here that Westminster looks past it – when you look at the flooding issues it’s got, the illegal tip, poor infrastructure, a whole host of other issues. Is it a surprise to people here that that might be like that when you have a House of Lords that’s largely drawn from within the M25?”

He added: “I can’t justify, personally, 800-plus members of the House of Lords. I don’t think – with great respect to many people in it, because I have true great respect, because there’s some incredible people in there – what the country spends on the House of Lords is actually justified by what the output is.

“I’m just being honest with you. I’m not going to hold back on it, actually, because I just think we’ve allowed this to persist for too long. If you want to cut the cost of politics, that’s the first place to look.”

In an interview with The House in November 2023, Burnham said reform of the Upper Chamber was urgent.

“I heard a narrative when I was in government a lot – that all that constitutional stuff, it’s not really a priority, we’ll get round to it at a different time. I’ve come around to the thinking that you can’t actually do that, that the wiring of the country is part of the problem,” he said before the 2024 general election.

Burnham also told The House on Friday that he maintains his support for changing Labour’s position on standing candidates in Northern Ireland. The party has a longstanding policy of not contesting elections in the devolved nation.

The leadership hopeful said his endorsement of electoral reform, which would introduce a switch to a more proportional voting system, could facilitate the change to Labour’s refusal to field candidates in Northern Ireland.

“Yes, I’ve had a position on that going back. But it would obviously require careful conversations with our sister party, the SDLP, and with other political parties in Northern Ireland. I wouldn’t want to blunder in and create an issue.

“But I do have an in-principle commitment that democracy should allow the range of parties to be represented, and personally I am in favour of more proportional systems, and that allows that approach, because in that type of system it’s not the case of one party not contesting where a sister party is involved. I just think it allows more collaboration between parties.”

Burnham was at a pub in Orrell announcing his call to cut business rates by 20 per cent for pubs and music venues and to remove small, family, high-street businesses, including hairdressers and cafes, from business rates altogether.

He said Labour had “got it wrong on small businesses” and the policy would be funded by raising rates on warehouses used by online tech giants and via action on empty retail spaces on the high street.

A Survation poll published on Thursday put Burnham 10 per cent ahead of his closest rival, Reform candidate Robert Kenyon (49 per cent to 39 per cent).

George Finch, the 19 year old running two councils, told The House magazine Restore Britain were akin to the BNP. (Alamy)

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George Finch, the 19-year-old councillor who is currently in charge of both Warwickshire County Council and Bedworth and Nuneaton Borough Council, said in an interview with The House magazine that he would fear for Sikh and Gurkha communities in his area, who have “fought with us (Britain)” in wars, if Rupert Lowe’s party entered power.

A Restore Britain spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “Finch is talking total bullshit.”

His comments come as Restore Britain looks to challenge Reform UK’s position as the leading right-wing party in the UK.

Lowe, the MP for Great Yarmouth, launched the party after falling out with Farage and being removed from Reform UK following accusations of bullying that he denies. Endorsed by the controversial billionaire owner of X, Elon Musk, Restore Britain is seen as to the right of Reform, promoting policies like the mass deportation of all illegal immigrants and shutting down universities that “brainwash students into hating their own culture”.

The party showed signs of its potential electoral threat to Farage at last month’s local elections. Restore Britain won all 10 seats it contested in Great Yarmouth on 7 May, helping to deny Reform a majority.

Meanwhile, polling published ahead of this month’s crucial by-election in Makerfield suggests that Lowe’s party is eating into the Reform vote in the northwest. A Survation survey published on Thursday put Labour candidate Andy Burnham 10 per cent ahead of Reform’s Robert Kenyon (49 per cent to 39 per cent), with Restore Britain’s Rebecca Shepherd in third place on 8 per cent.

Speaking to The House about the electoral threat posed to Reform by Restore Britain, Finch said the latter was “just a party on social media”: “What are their policies? What are their people?”

He said that several councillors whom he helped get elected for Reform have defected to Lowe’s party, claiming that they realise the sort of party they have joined and “the direction they want to go in”. 

“They just think: ‘Oh, well, I don’t like the way Reform is being done’, and you think, ‘right, okay, whatever your thought is, but why them?” said Finch.

He added: “In Bedworth, we’ve got a huge Sikh and Gurkha population that fought with us, and we take pride in celebrating them on Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day.

“And the whole town comes out, and it’s great when people say, ‘I’m gonna vote Restore.’ The Sikhs and Gurkhas that fought during the war? ‘Oh, yes, we love those people. They’re great.’ Under a Restore government, they’d be gone. No excuse, no reason. Gone, just because of their colour.”

The House magazine’s full interview with George Finch will be published in print and online in June.