Andy Burnham has launched a cost of living listening tour as households face the prospect of another winter of rising energy bills.
The tour began in England this week against a rather awkward backdrop, with forecasts cited by the SNP suggesting the average annual energy bill could climb to around £1,865 by January.
British Gas and EDF are forecasting a 5.8 per cent increase in October, taking annual bills to around £1,760, followed by another 6 per cent increase in January.
The Resolution Foundation has meanwhile warned that the risk of a further energy price spike in early 2027 remains real.
Against that backdrop, Burnham is taking his cost of living message directly to the public through a listening tour which has also been promoted through TikTok.
Listening to people struggling with household costs is unlikely to attract much opposition.
The more difficult question is what happens after the listening stops.
VAT is due to be removed from energy bills from October, but the SNP says the measure will save the average household only around £3 a month.
That leaves plenty of political space for opponents to ask whether the response matches the scale of the problem facing households.
SNP Depute Leader Keith Brown has been happy to occupy it.
He said:
“Andy Burnham says he wants to listen to people on the cost-of-living crisis, but everyone can see the colossal train of energy prices rises rolling down the tracks.
“Forecasts show bills will rise to £1865 by January meaning despite the Labour Party promising to cut bills by £300, they will be more than £600 higher than the Labour Party pledged and things could get even worse with the crisis in the Middle East.
“People in Scotland are being told their bills are going up yet again while Westminster is on a listening exercise, it makes the simple injustice that energy rich Scots pay some of the highest bills in Europe all the plainer to see.
“Our energy rich nation should be shielded from the tremors of global energy shocks, yet not only do we face sky high bills, jobs in our offshore industry are being destroyed at an industrial scale by the Labour Party.
“Andy Burnham is fast running into the reality of broken, Brexit Britain and when concerns about heatwaves turns to heating bills, listening tours for TikTok won’t cut it.”
For Scotland, the argument carries an additional edge because enormous quantities of energy are generated here while households remain exposed to high domestic bills and movements in international energy markets.
That contradiction has been a persistent feature of the Scottish energy debate and will become harder to ignore if bills rise again this autumn.
Burnham’s tour may tell him plenty about the pressures facing households.
The danger for any politician embarking on a listening exercise is discovering that voters have moved beyond wanting to be heard.
By January, they may simply want the numbers on their bills to come down.
