Echo Comment on day three of the new Burnham government

Just like with the previous days’ VAT cut on electricity and £2 cap on bus fares, it was greeted positively although there was again the feeling that this was small beer. It will save a pub about £21-a-week, which, sadly, will not prevent many closures.

The measure will cost the government £100m, but it is not immediately clear where this is coming from – the new prime minister talks of targeting vape shops and on-line retailers.

The other big day three announcement was the pausing of the prisoner release scheme. Good. Most people want to see tougher sentences, not prisoners being released halfway through, certainly not nasty killers like those involved in the manslaughter of PC Andrew Harper.

Perhaps Mr Burnham’s review will find a few non-violent offenders who can be let out instead of the killers and rapists, but even if it does, it will not alter the fundamental problem that our prisons are overcrowded.

Between May 2010 and April 2024, just 482 additional prison spaces were added to the estate (the Tories built 13,000 new cells but closed 12,500 old ones). Labour has promised to add 14,000 new spaces by 2031 – but we need them now. If the prisoner release scheme is stopped, our prisons will by full by November, and what will happen then?

It is good that Mr Burnham is in touch with public sentiment in introducing these measures, but the reality is that little baubles of positivity are not going to turn this supertanker around.