The former Manchester mayor accepted the King’s request to become Prime Minister at Buckingham Palace earlier in the day.
The new Prime Minister – Britain’s seventh since 2016 – was greeted with applause and cheers as he announced plans to “make politics work” and to “make it work better.”
Mr Burnham also promised to set out a ten-year plan later this year and measures to help with the cost of living.
Britain’s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham and his wife Marie-France van Heel pose on the steps of 10 Downing Street
AFP/Getty
He concluded the speech by urging people to “pull with me” and to “build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity.”
Andy Burnham’s first speech in full
“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 10 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 40 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 deindustrialised, 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.
Andy Burnham delivers his speech outside Number 10 after becoming prime minister
Getty
“And 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, reindustrialising 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.”
