Frontbench roles (2005–2010)
Following the 2005 general election, Burnham was promoted to serve in Tony Blair's government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, where he was responsible for implementing the Identity Cards Act 2006. In the government reshuffle on 5 May 2006, he left the Home Office to become Minister of State for Delivery and Reform at the Department of Health.
When Gordon Brown formed his first cabinet on 28 June 2007, Burnham was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury, a position he held until 2008. During his tenure at the Treasury, he played a key role in drafting the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review.
In a January 2008 reshuffle, Burnham was promoted to Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, replacing James Purnell. In June 2008, he issued an apology to Shami Chakrabarti, the director of the human rights pressure group Liberty, after she threatened to sue him for libel over comments that smeared her reputation in an article Burnham wrote for Progress magazine.
Later that year, Burnham announced government plans to tighten controls on internet content to rectify what he described as an imbalance with television regulations. This announcement was followed by an address to the music industry lobbying group, UK Music, where he called for "a partnership between Government and the music business as a whole: one with rewards for both of us; one with rewards for society as a whole." He added, "My job – Government's job – is to preserve the value in the system."
In April 2009, after being heckled by the crowd at the 20th anniversary memorial of the Hillsborough disaster, Burnham raised the issue at the next day's cabinet meeting in Downing Street. He requested permission from Gordon Brown to raise the disaster in Parliament, and Brown agreed. This intervention ultimately led to the establishment of the second Hillsborough inquiry. By 2014, when Burnham spoke at the 25th anniversary of the disaster, his pivotal role was recognized as he was cheered and applauded by the crowd.
On 27 April 2016, the day after the Hillsborough inquest verdict that found the 96 Hillsborough deaths had occurred as a result of unlawful killing, Burnham made a speech to the House of Commons calling for those responsible to be held to account. Condemning South Yorkshire Police, which had instigated a cover-up in the aftermath of the tragedy, he described the force as being "rotten to the core" while suggesting that the cover-up had been "advanced in the committee rooms of this House and in the press rooms of 10 Downing Street". The eleven-minute statement drew applause from MPs, a response that is generally against convention at Westminster.
This campaign reached a historic milestone in July 2026 when the House of Commons passed the Public Office (Accountability) Bill, widely known as the Hillsborough Law. Pushed through by the departing Keir Starmer government, the legislation establishes a statutory duty of candour for public officials and ensures non-means-tested legal aid for families facing the state at inquests. Burnham hailed the bill's passage as a fundamental "rewiring of the state" that would finally dismantle institutional cover-up culture, completing a personal full-circle political journey just days before he took office as Prime Minister.
In June 2009, Burnham was promoted to Secretary of State for Health, a post he held until the Labour government resigned following the 2010 general election. In July 2009, just a month after taking office, he launched an independent inquiry chaired by Robert Francis QC into unusually high mortality rates at Stafford Hospital (later renamed County Hospital). The inquiry uncovered systematic failures and heavily criticized the care provided by the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. A subsequent, wider public inquiry—also led by Francis—was launched in 2010 by Burnham's Conservative successor, Andrew Lansley. While this wider inquiry confirmed serious failings, it concluded that linking those failings to a specific number of deaths would be "misleading".
After leaving office, reports emerged claiming that Burnham and his predecessor as Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, had rejected 81 separate requests for a public inquiry into the Stafford Hospital deaths. Burnham also faced criticism for not visiting the hospital or meeting with the affected families during his tenure. The Daily Telegraph reported that up to 2,800 more deaths than expected had occurred across 14 NHS trusts highlighted for high mortality rates since initial concerns were raised in 2005. However, these figures were later discredited. The Keogh Review, led by Bruce Keogh into the 14 trusts, subsequently described the use of such statistical mortality measures as "clinically meaningless and academically reckless."
As Health Secretary, Burnham pioneered the creation of a National Care Service (NCS), aiming to introduce a publicly funded social care system free at the point of use, mirrored on the National Health Service. In July 2009, the Department of Health published its green paper, Shaping the Future of Care Together, which proposed an NCS "on par with the NHS." This was followed in September by a public consultation dubbed the "Big Care Debate", which Gordon Brown promoted as a "crucial national debate".
The consultation confirmed strong public appetite for social care reform, leading the government to opt for a phased rollout. The first stage began with the Personal Care at Home Act 2010, passed in April 2010. Burnham had formally launched the NCS a month earlier, granting all elderly and disabled people free social care. The second stage, scheduled for 2014, was designed to extend free social care to individuals in residential care for more than two years, with a third and final stage fully introducing free social care for all adults after 2015. However, following Labour's defeat in the 2010 general election, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition led by David Cameron and Nick Clegg scrapped the initiative, and the Personal Care at Home Act 2010 was subsequently repealed.
