Andy Burnham cancels engagements as his father’s death is announced

UK prime minister had been due to speak at the TUC conference in Brighton

Andy Burnham has cancelled his engagements for Monday and Tuesday after his father, Roy, died.

Among other plans, the prime minister had been due to speak to the TUC conference in Brighton on Tuesday.

Burnham’s father had Alzheimer’s and was in a care home. In an interview Burnham gave in July, he said his father’s condition meant he was unaware that his son was about to become prime minister.

“That’s a sadness because he would be [proud],” Burnham told the Times. “But the way I look at it, it’s his achievement as well. A whole family achievement, although he doesn’t know it.”

Burnham has talked about wanting to improve social care, in part because of his experiences with his father.

In one of his first speeches as prime minister, Burnham said it was humbling to see the “skill and the care and the professionalism” of care workers like those looking after his father, and that they should be paid more.

Among those expressing their condolences was Angela Rayner, the housing secretary, who posted: “My thoughts are with Andy and his family at this terribly difficult and sad time.”

In her own post on X, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, offered her condolences to Burnham and his family, adding: “No matter how old you are, or how much you try to prepare, losing your father is a profoundly painful experience.

“A part of your life that has always been there is suddenly gone forever and it can feel as though a part of you won’t ever be the same again.”

At the start of the Commons session on Monday afternoon, Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, said: “I am sure the whole house will want to send our best wishes to him and his family at this sad time.”

In Head North, the 2024 book he co-wrote with Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool city region mayor, Burnham described what he said had been a happy upbringing with his father, his mother, Eileen, and his two brothers in Culcheth, near Warrington in Cheshire. Roy worked as a telephone engineer, while Eileen was a GP’s receptionist.

“Neither my dad, Roy, nor my mum, Eileen, went to university. But both could have done if they had grown up in a different time and in a different place,” he wrote.

“Their knowledge of that fact seemed to make them all the more determined that their three sons would go. But that did not make them pushy parents in any way.

“Their approach was one of quiet encouragement and confidence-building. Our family home in Culcheth was always full of music, life, laughter, love and support.”