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Andy Burnham has told LBC his move to cap most single bus fares in England at £2 from next year will create a "fairer Britain". The cap on fares outside of London will help millions with the cost of living crisis by slashing maximum fares by a third for the rest of 2027. Writing exclusively for LBC Opinion, the new PM said the move is "putting money where it will make a real difference to people’s lives". "We know that people are working harder than ever just to stand still but Westminster hasn’t been doing enough to help," he wrote. As the nation digests a new PM with new policies and a new outlook, Jeremy Corbyn joins Simon Marks to discuss that, Donald Trump, and more. Listen to the full show on the all-new LBC App: https://app.af.lbc.co.uk/btnc/thenewlbcapp #simonmarks #jeremycorbyn #donaldtrump #labour #andyburnham #ukpolitics #news #lbc LBC is the home of live debate around news and current affairs in the UK. Join in the conversation and listen at https://www.lbc.co.uk/ Sign up to LBC’s weekly newsletter here: https://l-bc.co/signup
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0:00
Mr Corbyn, thanks very much indeed for being back with us on LBC again this evening
0:05
I mean, can I start by asking you about that question that I was posing there at the very end
0:10
I mean, we're seeing a lot of action, a lot of very early moves by Andy Burnham
0:14
including the first move that he took, a pledge to end rough sleeping
0:19
which I know is something that you did on the first day of your leadership of the Labour Party
0:26
But why couldn't some of these things have been done before? It seems extraordinary that there can suddenly be such a frisson of action
0:36
by the same party in government, even though it now has a different leader
0:40
Good evening. Good evening and very fair point. I'm very pleased that Andy has announced the end of rough sleeping homelessness
0:48
I hope that that means the money will quickly go to local authorities
0:52
in order to provide the accommodation for them. and that is absolutely essential but it has to go a lot further because the housing situation is dire
1:03
the housing of people in the private rented sector is incredibly expensive the local housing
1:10
allowance which is the allowance paid for housing benefit does not meet anywhere near the average
1:15
rent level in fact in my borough it's only two percent of the properties come within the lha
1:21
And so he's got to do a lot more than that. And obviously the building of council housing, all of which I absolutely welcome
1:27
So, yes, good start on rough sleeping homelessness, but an awful lot more to do
1:34
A third of our population almost in many parts of the country live in the private rented sector
1:38
They're paying through the nose on very high rents. We need rent control. On the VAT relief for home electricity bills, Darren Jones suggested yesterday that you couldn't just divert money from the digital ID to that because he claimed it was unfunded
1:54
Do you have a sense of exactly where things stand and where the money is going to come from, not just to pay for the VAT relief
2:01
but of course for all the other things that Andy Burnham is now already doing, including the £2 cap on bus fares
2:08
My understanding was that no money had been earmarked for the digital IT, which I welcome its cancellation of
2:16
I always thought it was a ridiculous and intrusive idea they were doing so good that it going But that doesn necessarily mean there any money going to be freed up because I never thought any had been allocated
2:27
I'm happy to be proved wrong if that's the case, which means that the cut in VAT will obviously mean a loss of some income from the Treasury
2:37
It will save people around £45, £50 a year, which is not massive
2:43
but is obviously better than nothing. So this leads then on to the question of taxation. And during the Makerfield by-election, Andy Burnham did say that he was concerned about the tax threshold at the moment, $12,500 a year frozen at that figure, which means that with inflation, another 500,000 people will be brought into taxation between now and 2030, which means that the very poorest people will be paying more in tax
3:14
I think there's a very strong case for, first of all, linking the threshold to inflation
3:21
Secondly, raising the threshold initially to 15,000 and later higher than that
3:26
thus taking the lowest paid out of taxation altogether, which would be a real, real benefit to the poorest and lowest paid in the country
3:34
And at the other end, you'd have to change the threshold for the higher earners
3:39
And I think that would be a fair thing to do, to say we're taking half a million people out of tax and we're putting more tax on the top end of the scale
3:48
That would be real redistribution of wealth. But he hasn't come up with that idea yet, but I think that's the sort of area that he needs to move into
3:56
I mean, we've seen very mixed messaging coming from Mr. Burnham and his camp over the last 36 hours on both of those ideas
4:02
well indeed and the arguments on rent control are ones that have been continually pushed back
4:11
on by the starmer government they brought in the renter's bill most of which was very welcome and
4:17
good but the fundamental problem is the cost of it and they're going to have to deal with that
4:23
because we cannot go on being the most expensive place in europe to live with the increasing levels
4:29
of housing insecurity, because there are, what, 300,000 people living in insecure accommodation
4:37
at the moment And so ending street homelessness is great but you got to go on to do more than that On the taxation issues he will get a lot of flack if he does try and put more tax on at the top end
4:51
But you've got to look at it. We live in a very unequal society and the very, very richest, the billionaire class, are getting very, very well off
5:01
150 billionaires own 22 percent of the nation's wealth. I think we need to have some serious talk about how we redistribute wealth within our society
5:10
We have appalling levels of poverty, appalling numbers of people, as the Roundtree Foundation are going to tell you later on
5:17
going without food, populating food banks and food banks themselves are having trouble getting enough food to keep the needs of the people coming in satisfied
5:28
And so we can't be a society that relies on food banks for people
5:32
We need to be a society that pays people properly and doesn't have excessive cost of living, which means that people don't get enough to eat
5:40
Now, back in 2015, when Mr Burnham was seeking the Labour Party leadership, he said that if he'd won the contest, he would involve Jeremy Corbyn in his team from the outset
5:51
Has he reached out to you from the outset? what kind of conversations have you had and is there any suggestion that you, with Andy Burnham
6:00
at the helm in number 10, might find a way back to the Labour benches? Well, in answer to the last
6:07
part first, no, there is no indication of that whatsoever and I wasn't expecting either. I have
6:13
met Andy Burnham in Parliament. We had a very pleasant conversation. I congratulate him on
6:19
winning and therefore his opportunity of becoming prime minister and talked about some of the issues
6:25
that are faced that we've been through here. So I do think that his government needs to be
6:33
assertive. And I think some of the people, for change that is, some of the people he's appointed
6:39
particularly Shabana Mahmood, fills me with a great deal of misgiving because she has pursued
6:45
this policy of attacking people on indefinite leave to remain. And if she carries that policy through
6:51
that is going to be very, very serious for our public services
6:55
and not least for the mental health of those people that are in this country legally and working very hard and now threatened with losing that status And can I just close the loop on the Labour Party issue You personally have no aspiration of returning to the Labour benches End of story
7:13
No, absolutely. The Labour Party expelled me from membership and didn't even acknowledge my 50 years' membership
7:20
and merely sent me an advice note that if I felt upset about it
7:24
I could find the Samaritans and told me there was no appeal against it. OK, and let me ask you finally tonight
7:29
about the future of British policy towards President Trump's war in Iran
7:35
He, as you know, is threatening tonight once again to strike Iranian civilian infrastructure, bridges and power plants
7:43
The UK continues to allow the United States to use bases here
7:49
from which to launch attacks on Iran. Do you believe that Mr Burnham and Ed Miliband, his foreign secretary
7:56
should now be telling the United States that they've given that policy a rethink? absolutely they should be because the war between the usa and iran for what aim is this war taking
8:08
place trump has never made that clear he spent billions on the war already it has cost the
8:14
lives of a lot of people in iran it's made the whole region very very dangerous it's shoved up
8:18
oil prices all over the world it's caused an economic problem in europe far east and all over
8:24
the world. Sadly, Keir Starmer allowed the Trump administration to use British bases as a takeoff
8:30
point to bomb Iran. Apparently, a request was made yesterday by President Trump. And bizarrely
8:37
Andy Burnham agreed that they could be used for a series of attacks. Well, these attacks are
8:42
illegal. This is killing civilians in Iran. There needs to be a peace process. Maybe the good
8:49
offices of Pakistan can be mobilized yet again to try and at least get a ceasefire and some way
8:55
forward. The last thing we need is a war between the USA and Iran. But on the bases, would you
9:00
allow them to continue using those UK bases? No, absolutely not. Because I think you have to say
9:06
if we are not involved in this war, and the government's argument is that these are defensive
9:12
attacks, I'm really puzzled. What is a defensive bombing? If you bomb somewhere, it is a bombing
9:19
which is going to damage places and kill people. No, I think we should do the same as other countries
9:24
and say absolutely no. Jeremy Corbyn, thanks so much for being on the programme tonight
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