Andy Burnham makes his first speech as the UK's new Prime Minister

Mr Burnham used his first speech as Prime Minister in Downing Street to promise to take power out of Westminster and give the public greater control over “life’s essentials”.

Speaking without the lectern used by his predecessors, Mr Burnham said he would set out help to address the cost-of-living squeeze.

In his first promise as Prime Minister he said he would “end rough sleeping in our country”.

Mr Burnham, who was met with cheers by supporters in Downing Street, said: “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.”

He concluded his first speech as Prime Minister by urging people to “pull with me” to “build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity”.

Earlier outgoing PM Sir Keir Starmer officially tendered his resignation to King Charles at Buckingham Palace and wished Mr Burnham well.

Then it was Mr Burnham and wife Marie-France’s turn to make the limousine journey to the palace where he was officially appointed the nation’s latest premiere.

His arrival thereafter at Downing Street was met with rapturous applause from supporters, including family, friends, local politicians and his predecessor as Makerfield MP Josh Simons who is now part of Mr Burnham’s policy team.

Burnham has said his first instruction to his Government as Prime Minister will be to “end rough sleeping in our country”.

Just hours before formally becoming the UK’s new leader, he visited homelessness charity The Passage in Victoria, London.

The organisation has the Prince of Wales as its royal patron, with William having first visited in 1993 alongside his mother Diana, then Princess of Wales.

Mr Burnham said his early morning visit was the “best place to start” ahead of his premiership, visiting such a charity to see “the lives that are being turned around”.

Speaking in Downing Street, in his first speech as PM, he told gathered supporters and journalists: “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.”

Under his mayorship, Greater Manchester ran “A Bed Every Night” programme – to which Mr Burnham pledged to donate at least 15% of his salary – to help bring rough sleepers in off the streets.

But official figures published in 2025 by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority showed that rough sleeping rose during his time there.

The number of people seen sleeping rough on a single night in Greater Manchester rose by 3.4% to 154 in autumn 2024 from 149 in 2023.

The authority said this was still below the 268 at the peak in 2017.

Pressed on the rise, during an interview at The Passage on Monday, Mr Burnham suggested support is needed across the board to make a difference.

He referred to the “Everyone In” scheme during the Covid-19 pandemic, when thousands of rough sleepers across England were taken in off the streets.

He said: “What I learned was, we ran a scheme every night, 600 beds, called A Bed Every Night and we funded it through various different ways.

“But we were the only place that was doing it and you won’t be able to get the numbers down if you’re the only place, and other cities, people are coming to Manchester.

“So it taught me that the only way is to do this together. Everybody pulling in the same direction, Everyone In, as we did in the pandemic – because we did bring people inside in the pandemic and that’s what I’m saying as I go into Government today.

“We did it then. We can do it now. Get the basics right. Put a care for people at the heart of everything that we do and just get this country working as it should again.”

He described The Passage as “an amazing shelter that supports people who are street homeless, people recovering from homelessness”.

He added: “It was the best place to start, to see what is being done here, the lives that are being turned around.”

After accompanying charity workers out on the streets on their daily check-in with rough sleepers in the Victoria area, Mr Burnham returned to The Passage building to help with food preparation by chopping mushrooms for the day’s breakfast and lunch.

He told the charity’s chief executive, Mick Clarke, that he had “seen your world from the ground” as Manchester mayor.

He said: “When you have that experience, you can do something with it when you are back at the national level. You change lives everyday (here).”

The latest annual national statistics, published by the Government in February this year, estimated there were 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in autumn 2025 in England.

This was a new record high and the fourth annual increase in a row.

Figures published in April, showed 3,944 people were sleeping rough in London in January-March 2026,

Homeless Link, which manages the Combined Homelessness and Information Network (Chain) homelessness database report, said this was down from 4,427 in the same period in 2025.

Analysis of annual figures showed that around a fifth of London’s new rough sleepers were people who had last been in asylum accommodation.

The findings show the asylum system remains “a significant route onto the streets of the capital”, researchers from Chain said.

There were 4,978 people on London’s streets in the year to March with information recorded about where they were last settled.

Of those, 21% or 1,037 people reported that they had been staying in asylum support accommodation.

Meanwhile, official Government figures showed a slight fall in the number of households in temporary accommodation – the first reduction in three years.

Temporary accommodation is a form of homelessness and can include hostels, refuges, and bed and breakfasts.

There were 134,210 households in such accommodation at the end of December 2025, down from 134,700 at the end of September 2025, according to official data published by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government in April.

But while the latest number dropped slightly below the previous record levels, it was still 5.0% higher than the figure for the end of December 2024 which was 127,820.

The number of children in temporary accommodation has, however, continued to rise, standing at 176,130 at the end of December, up from 175,930 at the end of September.

The number was up 6% year on year, from 165,450 at the end of December 2024.