Government to operate as normal while Burnham on holiday, No 10 says

Andy Burnham’s government will continue to function normally while the new prime minister is away on holiday, Downing Street has said.

Burnham is taking a break from his day-to-day duties to spend time with his family, after entering No 10 two weeks ago.

His official spokesman has said he will remain in direct contact with officials and continue to hold meetings while away from Downing Street.

But Reform UK’s chairman Lee Anderson has criticised Burnham for going on holiday so soon after taking office, saying: “This isn’t a prime minister that’s serious about leading.”

He accused the new prime minister of having “bunked off” after “dropping a number of unfunded commitments and overseeing over 2,000 illegal migrants breaking into our country”, in reference to a raft of policy announcements made in Burnham’s first two weeks.

But Justice Secretary Alex Norris defended Burnham’s decision.

“The prime minister is having a few days away with his family,” he told Sky News on Tuesday.

“He will be in constant contact with his office. I mean, I might gently say that I’ve spoken to him virtually every day since I joined the cabinet, and I suspect that won’t change.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she would not criticise Burnham for taking a holiday so soon into the job, but insisted he should have recalled Parliament after becoming prime minister in order to face scrutiny from MPs.

“Andy Burnham was running away from Parliament – he can’t run away forever, I’m not going to be giving him a holiday when we come back in September,” she told reporters on Tuesday.

Burnham’s holiday, the location of which is not known, follows a blitz of announcements during his first two weeks in office.

This included a cut to VAT on household electricity bills and business rate cuts for pubs, reinstating a £2 bus fare cap in England and holding initial cross-party talks on social care reform.

He has also established a “No 10 North” base in Manchester, and announced plans to allocate English city mayors a share of income tax in exchange for grant funding from central government.

Burnham’s last public appearance came over the weekend when he visited Dover in Kent, where he pledged to be “relentless” in curbing the number of people arriving in the UK on small boats.