Andy Burnham's first week pledges – how much do they add up to?

Andy Burnham's first week pledges – how much do they add up to?ByBen Chu, BBC Verify and Tom Edgington, BBC VerifyPublished8 minutes agoCommentsAndy Burnham is ending his first week as prime minister by working out of Manchester in the new No 10 North for the first time.He spent this week making a series of spending announcements mostly aimed at tackling the cost of living, including capping bus fares.BBC Verify has looked at Burnham's first week of spending commitments, how much they cost and how the government says they will be paid for, which comes to about £1.5bn. Here's how that breaks down and what could later be coming down the line.End rough sleeping in EnglandCost: £340m over five years, fundedIn his speech outside Downing Street , externalon Monday, Burnham said his "first instruction" would be "to end rough sleeping in our country".The most recent official data , externalsuggests that there were around 4,800 people sleeping rough on a single night in England in 2025, up from 1,800 in 2010.The government announced that Burnham's "instruction" would be delivered by £340m of spending, which it said would support at least 3,000 people over a five year period.It said this money would come from existing "uncommitted" budgets in the housing department.This means that the funding has been made available by the Treasury to the department but had not yet been assigned to a specific project.VAT cut from electricity billsCost: £850m, unfundedOn Tuesday morning the Treasury announced that it would cut, external VAT from domestic electricity bills in the current financial year, knocking an estimated £45 from the typical household's annual bill from the autumn.It said this would cost £850m in 2026-27 - to be funded by scrapping the previous government's digital ID scheme, which had been estimated to cost £1.8bn over the next three years.However, the Office for Budget Responsibility, the official spend...