Andy Burnham is facing pressure from his own party to revive the 0.7% overseas aid target, even as the prime-minister-in-waiting prepares a summer tour of Labour’s most disaffected heartlands in a bid to reset his government’s fortunes.
A collection of essays to be published soon by the New Economics Foundation thinktank lays out proposals for a Burnham-led government to rethink foreign policy. In it, Fleur Anderson, a former minister whose pre-parliament career was in international development, calls on Burnham to promise a return to spending 0.7% of national income on aid – the goal legislated under Gordon Brown but scrapped in 2020 by Rishi Sunak, ostensibly as a temporary Covid measure. Keir Starmer then made further cuts, diverting the money to defence and prompting the resignation of development minister Anneliese Dodds.
“Labour MPs urge Burnham to restore 0.7% aid target as he plans summer tour of Labour ‘danger zones’.”
Anderson proposes a 10-year road back to the target, arguing that “what matters is not mechanical annual targets, but establishing a credible long-term trajectory that partner governments, multilateral institutions, NGOs and local organisations can plan around”. She writes: “The need to strengthen our national defence demands serious answers. But retreating from development commitments is ultimately a false economy.”
Separately, Liam Byrne, chair of the Commons business and trade committee, urges the UK to use its chairing of the G20 in 2027 to convene discussions on a global wealth tax, picking up a baton from previous chairs South Africa and Brazil.
Meanwhile, Burnham is planning a summer tour for the second half of the recess, targeting Labour “danger zones” where the party has been losing support – particularly areas hit by controversial government policies. Insiders say the tone will be upbeat and hopeful, deliberately opposite to Keir Starmer’s early focus on Conservative failures. “His pitch will be about resetting the relationship with the voters, a more hopeful message that people seem to be receptive to,” one source said.
Expected stops include Aberdeen, where Labour’s North Sea oil and gas policy has been deeply unpopular; Port Talbot in Wales, whose last blast furnace shut in September 2024; and more Reform-facing parts of the UK described by allies as places “left behind” by Westminster. Burnham’s strategists aim to start his premiership in the opposite tenor to Starmer’s first months, which were dominated by the backlash to Rachel Reeves’s winter fuel allowance cut and a donations scandal.
The twin pressures – to restore aid spending and rebuild trust in Labour’s heartlands – now confront Burnham before he has even taken office. How he balances them will define the early course of his premiership.
