Kerry McCarthy MP on Andy Burnham, supporting the hospitality sector, and how to fight off the Greens

Kerry McCarthy is the Labour MP for Bristol East. First elected in 2005, she served in various frontbench roles between 2010 and 2025,

Now on the backbenches, McCarthy is free to speak openly about the state and direction of the Labour Party. At Labour’s conference in Liverpool, she did just that in an interview with LFF which covered the early days of the Burnham government, what Labour needs to deliver in the upcoming budget, and how Labour can fend off the electoral challenge from the Greens.

McCarthy told LFF that the early days of the Burnham government have been “really positive” and “a good start”. She contrasted this with the start of the Starmer administration, saying “it was amazing actually how quickly it went into being negative” and pointing specifically at the changes to the Winter Fuel Allowance as the point where things began to go wrong, branding the handling of that saga “politically inept”.

She went on to claim that under Starmer’s regime: “there were certain people wanting to send out the signals that we were prepared to make touch decisions – it was almost like a badge of honour to show ‘I’m prepared to say unpopular things’.”

Despite the positivity about Burnham’s first few weeks, McCarthy is also clear that there needs to significant movement on policy. “It’s one thing sounding like you’re on the right page, but there’s certain things that I’d be looking to him to show there is a difference”, she said.

There’s no more important moment on the political horizon for the prime minister to illustrate that than the upcoming budget in October. McCarthy has a list of things she wants to see the government deliver through that budget.

First on the list is support for the hospitality sector – particularly for small and local businesses. She told LFF she thinks the government should extend some of the support the government has already provided to pubs, clubs and music venues to other parts of hospitality.

McCarthy said: “Do you remember Andy did the support for pubs, clubs and small music venues? And when he was questioned why that and he said they’re working class – it’s that working class culture”, before adding: “In my constituency alone I’ve got 12 independent breweries. They’re absolutely brilliant. They’re great but they’re not particularly working class culture. Whereas I’ve got cafes that are are either like run by refugees or greasy spoons – there’s one for the homeless – which are very much part of our working class culture.”

She continued: “So to present it as pubs are working class, cafes are everyone’s eating avocado on sourdough is a false juxtaposition. And actually in quite a lot of our communities, it is those cafes that are the heart of them because not everyone goes to the pubs, particularly minority communities but also older people.”

McCarthy then went on to say: “I think he needs to broaden out the support more generally. But also one of the things I’ve been asking about is whether you can draw a distinction between the big chains and the independents.”

Alongside this specific ask around support for hospitality, McCarthy also said that the government needs to do more to more broadly address the “issues about the cost of employing people”, pointing to increased National Insurance contributions for employers.

Another key area McCarthy suggested the government needs to take action on through the budget is housing.

She told LFF: “The Local Housing Allowance was frozen for a long time. It was unfrozen as a one-off gesture in 2024. So that’s one of the things I’ll be lobbying the chancellor to look at. That only really helps people that are on the housing benefit side. But at the moment there’s virtually no properties at all available in Bristol that would be covered by that housing allowance.”

The plight of private renters in Bristol – one of the most expensive cities to rent in the UK – is a big issue for McCarthy. But what’s the solution? LFF asked her thoughts on the idea of reintroducing rent controls in England.

McCarthy said she was not “averse to it in principle”, but worries about potential unintended consquences on the housing market.

She told LFF: “It’s a bit like the minimum wage actually. When that first came in, there was this discussion as to whether you would actually stop young people being employed because they’d be priced out. And that’s why you had a differential rate.

“And with rent controls, it seems like there’s been quite a lot of reports that say it could actually have a negative impact in taking properties off the market […] so I want to see the evidence that this will actually work.”

She added: “But would there be an issue where if people they weren’t being allowed to charge market rates they’d say well, I’m going to turn it into an HMO and then I can get more?”, before concluding: “[I’m] not averse to it in principle.”

While the Labour Party currently has no plans to introduce rent controls, the Green Party does. And in McCarthy’s constituency of Bristol East, it is the Greens – rather than Reform – that are her biggest electoral threat.

Opinion polls currently show that Labour has begun to eat into the Green vote. But is Burnham currently doing enough to rebuild the part of Labour’s electoral coalition that has drifted leftwards?

McCarthy suggested he’s making progress on this, and has learnt the lessons of the Starmer era. “One of the frustrations with Morgan [McSweeney]’s reign at Number 10 was it was all about pivoting to the right and not realising there’s this whole left field that you should be occupying”, she said, before adding that Burnham had shifted “to an extent” in the other direction, but that there’s “quite a bit of a way to go on that”.

McCarthy highlights some specific areas where there has been movement. Chief among them is Labour’s position on Palestine.

She told LFF: “Gaza was a massive factor in my patch. And it’s very helpful – it’s the right thing to do – in terms of what he said on illegal settlements. And some of it’s just about the messaging, just sounding like you’re being more outraged by what’s happening. Not fake outrage though – genuinely being able to convey that this is not acceptable and Israel is committing acts with impunity and we will stand up, rather than that sort of slightly technocratic [approach] where we’ve introduced these sanctions and we’ve stopped these export licenses.”

Aside from wanting the government to shift its policy and comms in a direction that would appeal to Labour/Green switchers, McCarthy thinks there are other lessons to be learnt for how to ward off the Greens. She told LFF that the kind of campaign which Labour ran in the Gorton and Denton by-election is ineffective at stopping the Greens from eating into the Labour vote, calling it “so, so wrong”.

In Gorton and Denton, Labour’s campaign was heavily critical of the Greens’ positions on issues such as drug decriminalisation. The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer went on to win the by-election with Labour coming third behind Reform.

McCarthy told LFF: “Certainly in terms of fighting the Greens, I think the worst thing we do with the Greens is do those cheap political attacks – you know, Greens want to legalise heroin or something like that.” She went on to argue that voters can see through parties trying to “score cheap points”.

However, McCarthy didn’t suggest giving them a easy ride, or not criticising their policies. Indeed, later in the interview, she argued that the Green Party under Zack Polanski’s leadership had become “populist” and “reductive”.

This conversation matters right now. The Labour Party conference is taking place against the backdrop of the Holborn and St Pancras by-election, where the Greens are hopeful of winning their first seat from Labour in London. Polanski himself is the candidate, looking to take Starmer’s old constituency. What does McCarthy make of that contest?

McCarthy said she doesn’t know what will happen when the voters go to the polls on October 8, but she said she hopes that Labour in London have picked up the lessons she says she’s learnt in Bristol for fending off the Greens.

Speaking about the local elections in London this year – when Labour lost control of several councils to the Greens – McCarthy said: “One of things I was talking to campaigners [about] after the London elections was I was not happy that they’d used examples from Bristol. They were trying to say in Bristol, the Greens are doing this and that. And we knew from the Brighton experience, if you talk to [Hove and Portslade MP] Peter Kyle, he’ll say you don’t attack the Greens directly. You say Labour will clean up the streets – and by implication it’s the Greens who’ve presided over a drop in recycling rates and rubbish all over the streets, which is what happened in Brighton.”

McCarthy went on to argue that the Greens don’t have a fully formulated programme for government, and that Labour should be pointing this out. She told LFF that the Greens have “eye-catching, totemic” policies like wealth taxes and rent controls, but that there is insufficient detail in their overall pitch to the electorate.

She said: “When you look beyond that, what is their overarching strategy for housing? What’s their view on building more housing? What’s their view on retrofitting homes?”

She went on to say: “The wealth tax one is a great example, but on the surface, why wouldn’t that be appealing?”, before adding that the Labour Party should point out the “six or eight things which we’ve done” on wealth taxes, and that “an overarching wealth tax might not work – if you look at other countries’ examples, it’s proven a bit problematic”.

As a result of this, McCarthy said of the Greens: “I would hope that quite a lot of the voters would say well, we want a bit more substance from you.”

Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward