The government says the policy, which is expected to cost more than £500m, will "help with the cost of living and give people the breathing space they need".

At the start of last year, the England-wide bus fare cap rose to £3 under Sir Keir Starmer's Labour government, although in Liverpool and Manchester fares were held at £2.

Burnham said affordable transport links were an essential, adding: "Lower fares will help people get to where they need to."

The measure gives people "a little bit of hope" in a time when many are grappling with higher living costs - especially after fuel costs spiked as a result of the US-Iran war, transport secretary Heidi Alexander told the BBC's Today programme.
However, she admitted the measure was "not the whole solution".

The new cap will take effect from January next year for fares on participating buses outside of London. The cost of a non-discounted single bus journey in London is £1.75.

The Burnham government said going back to a £2 cap should particularly help passengers in rural and coastal areas, where single fares can be higher.

The Campaign for Better Transport said rural areas were still suffering from fewer bus routes and services, adding that such areas had been more affected by council cut backs in the last decade than urban zones.

Services in those areas - as measured by vehicle miles - decreased by 18% between 2019 and 2024, according to the County Councils Network, which represents 39 unitary and county councils across England.

"What we need to see is the replacing of those lost services which have particularly affected those in rural areas," Campaign for Better Transport's Michael Solomon Williams said.

Andy Burnham has used his first speech as prime minister to launch a national drive to end rough sleeping.

The announcement, delivered as Burnham addressed the nation outside 10 Downing Street, will be backed “from day one” by an extra £340 million in funding – pushing total investment in tackling rough sleeping to record levels.

Burnham argued the policy was central to his broader promise to build a “more preventative state” and invest “in people’s success, rather than paying for people’s failure.”

The new prime minister blamed successive governments for “turning a blind eye” to the issue of rough sleeping. Downing Street pointed to the “Everyone In” scheme launched during the Covid pandemic as proof that action is possible when there is political will.

Before delivering his speech on Monday afternoon, Burnham met people with experience of sleeping rough and heard first hand how “it can trap people in a cycle of crisis, poor health and insecurity.”

As a first step, the government will begin acquiring homes suitable for rough sleepers, identifying those most in need, and moving people into housing and support.

The £340 million is said to represent the opening phase of a five-year programme, with further details expected before the autumn.

Officials say the initial funding alone will provide 1,200 homes and intensive support for at least 3,000 people.

Burnham stated: “For too long, we’ve been told that ending rough sleeping will take decades or even that it’s impossible. I’m not having that.
“This is something a government can fix if it chooses to. Today, I’m choosing to.

“On my first day as prime minister, I’m announcing this government’s commitment to finally end long-term rough sleeping across the UK at the earliest opportunity.

“We’ll get to work immediately, bringing together national and local government with the investment needed to get it done.

“This is the kind of Britain I want us to be – a country where everyone has the security of a roof over their head, and where no one is left behind or written off. Let’s bring back hope.”

The Welsh Government laid new regulations to introduce Automatic Voter Registration (AVR) across all 22 Welsh local authorities ahead of the 2027 local elections. This marks a significant moment for Welsh democracy, making Wales the first part of the UK to formally introduce AVR.

The move follows successful pilots in four local authority areas during 2025, which saw thousands of eligible voters added to the electoral register. The pilots allowed local authorities to use existing public data, including council tax and education records, to identify and register eligible voters without requiring individual applications. This resulted in over 14,500 eligible voters added to the register.

Automatic voter registration makes voting simpler and fairer

ERS Cymru has long argued that AVR is necessary. It makes registering to vote simpler and could help remove barriers that prevent thousands of people from taking part in democracy.

We know there are significant inequalities in electoral registration, with some groups far less likely to be registered than others. According to the Electoral Commission 400,000 people in Wales are either incorrectly registered or missing entirely from the registered, with only 43% of 16–17-year-olds registered, compared to 95% of those over 65.

Rolling out Automatic Voter Registration to the whole UK

With this change Wales is setting out its stall for being ahead of the curve when it comes to UK democracy. The hope is that other UK nations will follow. The Representation of the People Bill, currently progressing through the UK Parliament, includes provisions to automate registration. Having this place at a UK level could ensure that between 7 and 8 million people are added to the register.

Ultimately, everyone should have an equal opportunity to have their voice heard on the decisions that affect their lives.

The loss of European Union (EU) nurses from the NHS caused more than 3,700 additional hospital deaths in the three years after the Brexit referendum, according to researchers.

The research, published in the Economic Journal, used data from NHS electronic staff records and hospital episode statistics as well as NHS staff survey data and hospital trusts financial accounts to look into the impact of the Brexit referendum on NHS hospitals from 2016-2019.

The researchers found that following the Brexit referendum, there was a sharp drop off in the number of nurses from EU countries coming to work in the NHS. This shortfall in workforce was made up by recruiting international nurses from non-EU countries, noted the researchers.

But they found that the loss of the EU nursing workforce was associated with poorer health outcomes from 2016-19 in terms of in-hospital mortality, overall mortality and unplanned emergency readmissions.

Over the three year post-Brexit period, the loss of new EU nurses from the NHS hospital workforce led to an additional 3,714 deaths and nearly 14,000 emergency department readmissions, the researchers estimated.

And hospitals that had relied heavily on EU nurses before the Brexit referendum had worse health outcomes in the post-Brexit period than those with a workforce less dependent on EU nurses before the referendum, they found. The researchers also looked at hospital emergency readmission data for the period up to November 2023, to see if the impacts of the Brexit referendum on quality of care were long-lasting. However, they found that the link between loss of EU nurses and mortality was no longer detectable in the years after 2019.

But the hospitals most impacted by the Brexit referendum continued to have poorer outcomes than other hospitals in terms of emergency admissions up to November 2023.

The lead researcher on the study, Professor Giuseppe Moscelli, said the research showed that simply filling workforce vacancies was not enough to protect healthcare quality.

He said that the sudden drop in the nursing workforce caused by the Brexit referendum forced employers to recruit quickly to fill vacancies, replacing the lost workforce with one that was less skilled and experienced.

Devolution of power. Burnham has promised the biggest-ever "rebalancing of power" away from Whitehall, with English regions handed more control in areas including housing and transport by a new No 10 unit based in Manchester. The unit would be tasked with promoting "equivalent living conditions" across Britain, borrowing from an idea in the German constitution. He has also promised new opportunities to extend existing devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

This could be an area where he looks to build on the policies of the Starmer government, which was in the process of extending regional mayors beyond the main urban areas in England.

Water and energy. Burnham has said he wants all parts of the UK to take "greater public control" of the water and energy sectors. He has suggested this could emulate Greater Manchester's bus network, where private operators bid to run services on a franchise basis, with local authorities controlling fares, timetables and routes.

Housing. Burnham has promised the biggest council house building programme "since the post-War period" - implying a large rise in rates of construction compared to recent years. However, he is yet to offer details of how this would be funded.

He has also called for the entire 10-year £39bn affordable housing budget for England towards homes for social rent, the cheapest and most heavily subsidised form of publicly-funded housing.

Currently some of the budget goes towards "affordable" housing, where rents are more similar to market rates, as well as affordable home ownership schemes. Some of his other policies in this area - including restricting Right to Buy - have already been put in train by the current government.

Personal taxes. Burnham has said he would stick to Labour's pledge at the last election not to raise the main rates of income tax, VAT or National Insurance, whilst maintaining there is "some room within that manifesto for movement" in other areas. During his campaign to be re-elected an MP, he also said he wanted to "have a proper look" at potentially raising the £12,570 starting threshold for income tax.

Burnham has previously argued the UK overtaxes work and undertaxes wealth, prompting speculation he could raise capital gains tax - paid on profits made when selling assets such as shares and property aside from a main home. In one interview, Burnham did not rule out a wealth tax.

He has previously suggested that both council tax and stamp duty, a tax paid by homebuyers, could be replaced with a new tax on the value of land - an idea he has been advocating since as far back as 2010.Social care. Burnham has long supported the idea that social care should become a more universal system. In a speech in 2023, he suggested this could be funded by replacing inheritance tax with a new "national care levy". He has suggested everyone would pay this new tax, whilst "obviously the wealthiest would pay the most". Labour promised to overhaul the system in opposition, but upon taking office commissioned a review of funding that is not due to report until 2028. Burnham has said he would bring that forward to the end of this year.Immigration. Like the Sunak government, Labour has reduced levels of immigration by tightening visa requirements. During his Makerfield campaign, Burnham said net migration "needs to fall further", although he has not set a specific target. One area where he could have an internal battle on his hands is over proposals to lengthen the time that foreign nationals already living in the UK would have to wait before they can qualify for permanent residence. Earlier this year, Burnham urged Labour MPs to heed warnings from the party's former deputy leader Angela Rayner about the impact of the changes. But when running to be an MP himself, he said he supported the "broad thrust" of the plans, unveiled earlier this year by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

Welfare and employment. Burnham has said he wants to see a "fair and lasting" reduction to the UK's welfare bill, amid rising spending on health and disability benefits in recent years. But he has not set out plans to change the level of benefits payments, or how people qualify to receive them.

Instead, he argues the claimant count can be reduced by improving employment support and "in-work" mental health support. He has also said he wants 16 to 18-year-olds to have guaranteed work placements. Burnham has said he would keep the "triple lock".

Business policy. Burnham has said he wanted to preserve "sovereign manufacturing" capability in key areas such as steel, defence, energy, and farming, and he wanted to make it easier for British companies to win public contracts. During the by-election campaign, his team sent out a policy document promising a cut in business rates for pubs and music venues by 20%. That would be paid for, they said, by higher taxes of out-of-town warehouses used by online retailers like Amazon. Burnham also wants to raise the threshold at which business rates kick in, taking lots of small high street shops out of paying altogether.

Foreign policy and defence. Burnham has said he would like the UK to rejoin the EU within his lifetime, but he has insisted he does not want to "re-run the [2016] referendum now". He has pledged to seek a "closer relationship" with European countries, and "consolidate the progress made" on existing negotiations with the EU.

Defence spending, which prompted the resignation of Starmer's defence secretary John Healey earlier in June, would provide another headache. In one of his final decisions in office, Sir Keir announced a plan to increase military spending by £15bn over the next four years by cutting spending in other parts of government, whilst leaving the details to Burnham to flesh out.

Electoral reform. Burnham has said he would "seek to persuade my own party" of the need to include a pledge in Labour's next election manifesto to replace the UK's first-past-the-post system with a form of proportional representation.

Andy Burnham pledged to lead a united Labour government free of infighting and factional politics as he took over as leader, despite anxiety on the left of party about the prospect of Shabana Mahmood as chancellor.

Burnham, who will become prime minister on Monday, set out a distinctly leftwing vision for Britain. He promised to undo the Thatcherism of the 1980s, bring in more public ownership of utilities, find the money to fix social care and build a new generation of council homes.

But he also insisted he would be “pro-business”, just as he was as mayor of Greater Manchester.

Arguing that his election was the most significant change in British politics for 40 years, Burnham said this was the “last chance” for Labour to get things right. He appealed for unity in order to “beat Britain’s new right”.

William Clouston, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), will represent the party in the upcoming vote on August 13.

Mr Clouston, who has led the SDP since 2018, said: "Our political elites must stop pretending.

"They must stop pretending that mass migration doesn’t erode the social fabric.

"They must stop pretending that they can under-invest forever, and borrow against future generations.

"They must stop pretending that you can run a competitive economy with the world’s highest energy prices.

"And they must stop pretending that Reform will just go away.

"Nigel Farage has given the establishment a chance to put their case to his constituents.

"Rather than rise to the challenge, however, the old parties decided to write the people of Clacton off.

"The establishment is sniggering away at the spectacle of Nigel Farage against a candidate wearing a bin on their head.

"It has now fallen to the SDP to take up the challenge of ensuring a democratic contest and offering a positive vision that thousands of people in Clacton can believe in.

"We know that Farage and Reform are channelling legitimate grievances against a broken political and economic system.

"The SDP’s challenge to Farage is that he doesn’t have what it takes to fix it.

"Only we have the policy detail, the willingness to invest in the country, and the backbone to make the trade-offs Britain needs to survive.

"In this by-election, we’re giving people an alternative to Faragism – not a sneering rejection of their real concerns."

Nigel Farage is standing in the by-election after resigning on July 7.

Impact on finances: One of the most prominent and widely believed claims of the 2016 referendum campaign was that the UK sent £350 million a week to the EU, and that this money would be spent on the NHS instead.

In real terms, total health spending across the UK as measured by the Treasury’s Country and Regional Analysis rose from £202 billion in 2019/20, the year Brexit actually occurred, to £242 billion in 2024/25 – equivalent to over £750 million extra per week. However, Brexit hindered this extra spending, rather than helping it. Multiple studies show that the amount saved from EU contributions (never close to £350 million a week) was greatly outweighed by the economic damage from leaving the EU single market. Health budgets grew, in part because they grew as a share of public spending – from 23% of expenditure in 2015/16, the year before Brexit’s economic impact began, to 26% in 2024/25 – and because taxes rose to historic highs.

Impact on staffing: During the referendum, those opposing Brexit warned that health and care would be unable to cope with a sharp drop in EEA migration. The sector was disproportionately reliant on migrant workers and EU-born staff were the fastest growing category.

In the short term, the collapse they feared did happen – particularly in nursing, where the referendum came alongside a new language test requirement for EU nurses. This saw EEA nursing recruitment drop from 9,389 in 2015/16 to just 793 two years later, while the rate of leavers rose. One preprint study even suggests this raised mortality in certain hospitals. 

From 2020, with the pandemic alongside the true end of free movement of labour, social care was also hit hard, with a collapse in EEA migration so marked that the total workforce in the sector fell. But facing the pandemic and concern about staff shortages, the government responded by dramatically opening migration from outside the EU. This caused the largest staff expansion of the 21st century immediately after Brexit. 

Impact on medicines: Medicine shortages were a frequent concern linked to leaving the EU. By 2024, every indicator was flashing red. Patients were facing real shortages of critical products.

But these problems are not primarily due to Brexit. The great wave of shortages since 2022 is replicated across Europe – in France, Germany and Italy, among others. It aligns better with manufacturing shutdowns in China and the onset of war in Ukraine, rather than Brexit itself.

As with staffing, this partly reflects the UK government taking defensive action to retain some version of the status quo. It established a system requiring firms to notify upcoming shortages and managing them across different public bodies. While there is significant room to improve it, this system was just in time for the crisis to come. The UK also unilaterally accepts tests of medicines batches in the EU, though the EU does not reciprocate. This leaves it at a trading disadvantage, but removes one barrier to imports. As with staffing, these strategies are not stable.

Impact on medical research: Brexit posed significant difficulties for UK biomedical research – weakening opportunities for doctors and patients and the status of the NHS as a place for innovation. Cancer Research UK and other organisations warned that exclusion from the EU’s Horizon Europe funding programme reduced opportunities for international collaboration, delayed clinical research, and made the UK less attractive to leading researchers. While associate membership was finally secured in 2024, uncertainty already exists around the next cycle from 2028. Regulatory separation from the EU and its new shared process for approving clinical trials now means that adding UK patients and hospitals to a study comes with a higher level of red tape.

Impact on international trade agreements: The UK’s departure from the EU enabled it to sign its own international trade agreements. This had the potential to benefit health in the UK through smoothing generic medicines trade or increasing scientific cooperation, or to obstruct it by improving the position of global businesses that need to be negotiated with or regulated for health reasons. Unfortunately, the negatives have outweighed the positives. (Details in article)

https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/complaints-and-investigations/allegations-currently-under-investigation-by-the-commissioner/