Andy Burnham not doing enough to boost growth, says former business secretary

A cabinet minister under Sir Keir Starmer has said Andy Burnham's government is not focused enough on boosting economic growth and needs to act with "more urgency".

Speaking to the BBC two months after being sacked in Burnham's cabinet reshuffle upon entering office, Peter Kyle said he wasn't making a "criticism" but "pointing to the potential that we have as a country and as a government".

"If the destination means prosperity, it means freedom for people to do new things, and it means security for people and families, then why wouldn't we put our foot down and get there quicker," the former business secretary said.

It comes as Labour prepares to gather in Liverpool for its annual conference.

Burnham will address the conference on Tuesday and has said his speech would leave nobody in any doubt about "what I'm trying to do in this role."

He has previously said his time as Greater Manchester mayor had given him "a clear theory of growth" stressing his belief in the importance of devolving powers to local areas.

Giving regions and nations more control would, he has argued, create the conditions for "good growth in every postcode".

Kyle served as science secretary and later business secretary in the Starmer government, but has now returned to the backbenches as the MP for Hove and Portslade.

In an interview with the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, he said the government should be willing to take decisions that involve "short-term" pain in order to deliver economic growth, suggesting a delay to expanding workers' rights.

"We might need to look and have honest conversations with unions about how we sequence some of the rights going forward in order to make sure that we get growth into the economy in the shorter term," he said.

The government's Employment Rights Act was passed in December 2025 but some of the changes are not due to come into force until next year.

The former minister also suggested introducing a "tax growth test" which would measure the impact of each tax on the economy and asking government experts to review "obstacles" to growth.

Asked if there was enough focus on growth in the government, Kyle replied: "I don't think there is and that isn't a criticism - it is pointing to the potential that we have as a country and as a government.

"I think we need to up our ambition, I think that we need to act with more urgency when it comes to economic growth."

Chancellor John Healey is due to give his first Budget on 28 October, but faces rising debt costs and warnings of slower economic growth.

According to the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the UK economy is expected to grow by 1%, slightly less than the 1.1% previously forecast.

Responding to Kyle's comments that the government needed to act with more urgency on economic growth, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy suggested that the prime minister was moving faster than his predecessor, Sir Keir Starmer.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think the the reason, frankly, that we had a change of leadership at the start of this year is because we all felt that people need to feel the change in their lives that we promised in 2024 much more quickly."

She added that she believed Burnham was "impatient for change, and he thinks big about the sort of change that the country needs".

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Earlier this week, Starmer ally Darren Jones told the New Statesman he thought Sir Keir should have been given more time in office and criticised "this modern approach of getting queasy and then just changing [leader] too rapidly".

"In the past it was normal for governments to be unpopular midterm because you've got to take difficult structural long-term decisions."

The former chief secretary to the prime minister added: "Irrespective of what's happened and how, we want it to be successful, and we have a collective responsibility to help make that the case.

"We, as backbenchers in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party], are looking to… Andy and his team to get that right. We want them to get it right."

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