I have just come from Buckingham Palace, where I have accepted His Majesty the King’s invitation to form a government. In doing so, I am acutely conscious that I am the sixth person in the last ten years to walk up this street, the seventh Prime Minister since 2016.
Making this a moment for reflection and new resolution. It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game, and rise to the new challenge.
Britain needs to show the world that we can regain our stability once again, and that is our challenge, to make politics work, to make it work better. I know people at home are fed up with politics. I hear you. And I want to be honest with you. We have not been good enough, and we need to be better. We will be.
We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last forty years. A new political model and a new economic model.
In the 1980s, Britain took some wrong turns. Political power was centralised, economic power privatised, large parts of the country de-industrialised, and they still haven’t recovered. Many feel as though they’re still in decline, and they don’t have the ability to turn things around. And that’s why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring.
We will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more. And in doing more, build a new economy where we put life’s essentials back under stronger public control to make them affordable to you again. Re-industrialising Britain, using public procurement to back British industry.
Later this year, I will bring forward a new plan for Britain, a 10-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be, wherever we’re coming from, whatever party we support.
But I can do something to give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living.
And I will set out some of those measures starting tomorrow, including how we pay for them. We will help more young people into work by changing the education system and giving them more support, more mental health support. And we will build more council homes. That is the fair and sustainable way to bring the welfare bill down, to meet our fiscal rules, and to honour our commitments on defence to our international partners.
We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people’s success, rather than paying for failure. And that work starts now.
I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.
It’s about putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government. I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do. I will give this my all, and I ask you all to pull with me.
Let’s build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity. Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again. The moment we bring back hope. Thank you very much everybody.
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Burnham has vowed to tackle rough sleeping before - can he achieve it?
Tackling rough sleeping was one of the first things Burnham wanted to do when he became mayor of Greater Manchester. He gave a percentage of his wage to help rough sleepers and said he was going to eradicate rough sleeping in Manchester by 2020 initially, but that hasn't happened. There is still a problem with rough sleeping. It has gone down in numbers, but it hasn't been eradicated. So it's quite interesting that he made that one of his first pledges to do it on a national scale. We'll see whether he can actually achieve it.
BBC Verify: In his first speech as PM, Andy Burnham said he would "issue my first instruction to end rough sleeping in our country". Local authorities in England record rough sleeping "snapshots" during a single night in autumn every year, but this does not capture all homeless people (for example, those living in hostels). In 2017, the authorities estimated there were 268 rough sleepers across Greater Manchester, according to figures published by the Ministry for Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG), external.
Three years later - at the time of the Coronavirus pandemic - that estimate had more than halved to 125 and although Burnham did not meet his target, rough sleeping fell further to 90 in 2021.
However, the latest data for 2025 shows it had risen to 197. Rough sleeping has also increased nationally in recent years. In autumn 2025, the number of people estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in England was 4,793 - a record high.
Burnham vows cost of living help in first day on job - what options does he have?
Some things - like the prime minister - change, while some remain the same.
It was only in January that Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves declared the cost of living as their "number one focus". Now Andy Burnham is having a go, promising some "breathing space" for people’s finances with announcements to come on Tuesday - his first full day in the job.
Given how the last administration was defined for some time by the early decision to cut winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, he will clearly want to start on a positive note. There are plenty of options - tax changes, a social tariff on energy bills, help with the cost of food or fares. Crucially, he also said he would explain how that would be funded - giving a wider sense, perhaps, of the financial winners and losers in a Burnham-led government.
What to expect from Burnham in the coming weeks
Andy Burnham will set out some of his policies and priorities as the week unfolds.
Last week he promised a "plan" but today he made it clear we will have to wait longer to see his 10-year blueprint. Keir Starmer of course had a "Ten Years of National Renewal" mission - he, and it, lasted only two. Quite a few areas where people want to see where he’s heading didn’t rate a mention.
We know he won't allow new oil and gas licences but he can do more drilling without doing so, adjacent to existing fields or exploiting unused licences. He steered clear of what will be a controversial policy within Labour's ranks today. But we know he will announce a new energy secretary later today. On defence, he has indicated he’d fulfil Starmer’s plan but its not clear yet if he will go beyond this. Again, it didn’t rate a mention.
He did mention "public control" of essentials – note ‘control’ isn’t the same as ownership. In Manchester buses are regulated, fares are controlled but provided by private companies. But he has nonetheless set a big bar himself, no less than a new economic and political model. Voters - and markets - will be keen to learn the details.
'No 10 North' already up and running, BBC told
The new “No 10 North” in Manchester is up and running, a source close to Andy Burnham has told the BBC. Neither the location nor precise details of the operation – which the new prime minister has previously said would help re-balance power across the UK – have so far been confirmed.
There has been speculation as to where in Manchester would become "No 10 North". One possibility is Heron House, where GCHQ has some of its offices, due to its high level of security clearance. A civil service base that is currently under construction, in the Ancoats area, is a longer term option.
What is No 10 North?
When Andy Burnham launched his bid to become prime minister, he pledged to create a new Downing Street team in Manchester. He dubbed it "No 10 North", which he said will form part of his vision to redistribute and devolve power across the UK. "The people of Dundee and Bangor feel just as distant from Holyrood and the Senedd as they do from Westminster," he added.
It will, he said, help to "drive good growth in every postcode", as well as meaning growth is nurtured from the bottom up rather than "from the top down" in Whitehall.
Burnham said that for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland there would be new opportunities to extend devolution.
No 10 North is the place that he says will make this achievable in his vision - supporting regions and making "power flow" across the UK. Today he said it will take power away from Westminster and Whitehall and from there, building a new economy. While the BBC understands it is now up and running, we do not know the key details about how it will work and what it will be in charge of.
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