Early general election an option for Burnham, says TUC chief

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak has suggested Andy Burnham could call an early general election if the prime minister decides Sir Keir Starmer’s 2024 election manifesto leaves too little room to change economic policy.

Mr Nowak made the comments in interviews ahead of the TUC’s 158th annual Congress, which runs in Brighton from Sunday to Wednesday. He also called for a series of measures to help workers, including more taxes on the financial sector, the insourcing of public services and the delivery of new employment rights in full.

Speaking to GB News, he said: “I don’t think that the public are battering down Andy Burnham’s door in Downing Street, saying, ‘Let’s have a general election’. We’ve got to get through the first Budget.

“Let’s see Andy’s 10-year plan. He might decide, actually, ‘I’ve not got enough room within the manifesto to deliver the change that I think we need to see.’”

Tax and the Budget

Chancellor John Healey, who will deliver his first Budget on 28 October, has said the new government is continuity Labour.

Mr Burnham, who became prime minister in July, has promised to honour Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitments not to raise VAT, income tax or national insurance. “I stick by the manifesto and the promises that it made,” he said before taking office, adding that there was “some room within that manifesto for movement on tax”.

Mr Nowak wants the prime minister to introduce a wealth tax. He told the Press Association: “We have an economy that is not working for too many people, a tax system that is better at taxing people than wealth.”

The CBI has warned Mr Healey ahead of the Budget that rising costs are damaging business investment, saying in a 75-page report that businesses paid almost £345bn in taxes in 2025-26.

Employment rights

Labour’s Employment Rights Act has already brought in changes covering sick pay and paternity leave. Under the government’s implementation timeline, the lower earnings limit and waiting period for statutory sick pay were removed on 6 April, when a day-one right to paternity leave was also introduced.

Further measures take effect on 30 October, according to the timeline. They include a duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union and a requirement for employers to take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.

More changes are due next year. The qualifying period for unfair dismissal will be cut to six months for dismissals from 1 January 2027, alongside the uncapping of compensatory awards. Fire and rehire protections and a right to guaranteed hours are also scheduled for 2027.

Mr Nowak told Politico that further changes to employment law were needed. “I think it’s entirely legitimate to say, at the next election, what is Labour’s manifesto going to say about employment rights?” he said.

“The idea that the Employment Rights Act is the finished article in terms of UK employment law, that nothing else needs to change, I think clearly is not the case.”

He also called for trade unions to be exempted from any move to cap political donations.

Paul Jones

Harvard alumni and former New York Times journalist. Editor of Business Matters for over 15 years, the UKs largest business magazine. I am also head of Capital Business Media’s automotive division working for clients such as Red Bull Racing, Honda, Aston Martin and Infiniti.