Side by side
The Green Party of England and Wales and The Labour Party across all ten areas, in their own stated terms. Open in full for the detail beneath any line.
Immigration & asylum
Green
Expand safe routes; end hotel accommodation; oppose deterrence
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Opposes deterrence-based policy outright, favouring expanded safe and legal routes and an end to hotel-based asylum accommodation.
Labour
Continues Mahmood reforms; cites 43% fall in crossings
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Burnham voted for and continues to back Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood's immigration reforms, which reshape the asylum appeals process and remove barriers to deportation. The government points to the 43% year-on-year fall in Channel crossings as evidence that enforcement co-operation with France is working.
He has not set out an approach distinct from the one he inherited, and Ipsos finds the public unconvinced the government will deliver on immigration.
Check itWhat to expect from Andy Burnham — Travers SmithTax & the economy
Green
Wealth tax on assets over £10m; £15 minimum wage
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A wealth tax of 1% a year on individual assets above £10m and 2% above £1bn, which the party says would raise £15bn a year. Alongside it, a £15 minimum wage and a four-day working week.
Economists dispute wealth-tax yields of this size, pointing to valuation difficulty and behavioural response; the party treats the figure as its own costing.
Check itWhat are the Green Party's economic plans? — Economics ObservatoryLabour
Act on the frozen personal allowance; wealth tax not ruled out
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Action on the income tax personal allowance, frozen at £12,570 — which Burnham called "the thing I heard most on the doorsteps". Business rates would rise on large warehouses while high-street shops and pubs are exempted. He has not ruled out a wealth tax.
A £4.7bn gap in the existing spending plan is to be "confirmed at Budget 2026", so the funding is not yet set out.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsNHS & social care
Green
More health spending; opposes private provision in the NHS
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Increased health spending forms part of the capital programme, with the party opposing private provision within the NHS.
Less detailed than its economic and environmental platform.
Check itWhat are the Green Party's economic plans? — Economics ObservatoryLabour
A publicly funded national care service
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A publicly funded national care service, which Burnham has framed as finally "grasping the nettle" on social care reform and links to his father's Alzheimer's. The Tobacco and Vapes Act, passed in April 2026, makes it illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone born after 2008.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsHousing
Green
Social housing funded from the capital programme
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Social housing is funded from the same £90bn capital programme, alongside health and education — the party's answer to supply being public building rather than planning liberalisation.
Check itWhat are the Green Party's economic plans? — Economics ObservatoryLabour
End rough sleeping; biggest council housebuilding since the war
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Burnham's stated "first instruction" on entering Downing Street was to end rough sleeping. He has promised the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period, using vacant public land to hold costs down, with higher-density development in existing towns.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsCrime & justice
Green
Presumption against short sentences; divert rather than jail
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A presumption against custodial sentences under two years, with investment redirected to courts, diversion schemes and violence-reduction units rather than prison places. The party would restore youth services and community policing, repeal the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Act, abolish the Prevent programme, and decriminalise sex work.
Labour
3,000 more neighbourhood officers within twelve months
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3,000 additional neighbourhood officers and PCSOs within twelve months, with dedicated teams patrolling town centres at peak times to end what the government calls the policing "postcode lottery". Burnham points to his Greater Manchester record: 8,271 officers by March 2026, around 2,000 more than when he took office in 2017, alongside a 15% fall in neighbourhood crime.
Check itBurnham's policing plan — Greater Manchester Combined AuthorityEnergy & net zero
Green
£90bn a year capital spending; water, rail and energy in public hands
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Capital spending raised by £90bn a year by 2030, of which more than £70bn goes to the green transition. Water, rail and energy companies would be taken into public ownership.
Check itWhat are the Green Party's economic plans? — Economics ObservatoryLabour
Strip policy levies from bills, worth about £130 a year
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Removing policy levies from energy bills, worth roughly £130 a year to a household, at a cost to the taxpayer of about £3.2bn a year.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsEducation
Green
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Labour
VAT on private school fees, in force since January 2025
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VAT has been charged at the standard 20% rate on private school fees since 1 January 2025, removing a long-standing exemption. The Treasury forecast the measure would raise £1.51bn in 2025/26.
The government's own forecast expected 37,000 pupils — about 6% of the private sector — to move into state schools as a result. Several large private schools responded by sharply expanding bursaries.
Check itVAT on private school fees — House of Commons LibraryDefence & foreign policy
Green
Cancel Trident and begin disarming, while staying in NATO
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Immediately begin dismantling Britain's nuclear weapons, cancelling Trident and banning nuclear-armed ships from UK waters, while continuing to recognise NATO's role in European security.
The combination of remaining in NATO while unilaterally disarming is the most contested element of the platform, since the alliance's strategic concept is explicitly nuclear.
Check itThe Green Party's defence plan — British BriefLabour
Keep NATO and the nuclear deterrent; upgrade equipment
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Maintaining the NATO commitment and the nuclear deterrent, and upgrading equipment through a defence investment plan.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsEurope & the constitution
Green
Rejoin the European Union
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Rejoining the European Union is party policy.
Check itPolanski outlines Green economic policy — AOL / PALabour
Closer co-operation, not rejoining; devolution at home
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Having previously supported rejoining the EU, Burnham now says he will avoid a "permanent rut" of that argument, seeking closer co-operation on defence, illegal migration and economic security instead. Domestically his defining project is devolution: a "No 10 in the North" based in Manchester, and water, transport and housing brought under stronger public control short of full nationalisation.
Check itAndy Burnham's main policy pledges — Yahoo NewsMedia & culture
Green
No current published position located. This may mean the party has said little on the subject, or that we have not found what it has said — we would rather show the gap than fill it with inference.
Labour
Keep the licence fee to charter end, while reviewing it
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The government is committed to the licence fee until the end of the current BBC charter, while its royal charter review considers reform of the fee and greater commercial revenue for the corporation. A public consultation closed in March 2026 and a white paper is expected later in the year.
Check itThe future of the BBC licence fee — House of Commons Library
Positions are summarised from each party’s published material. How we place parties.
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