{"analytics_identifier":null,"base_path":"/government/speeches/andy-burnhams-first-speech-as-prime-minister-20-july-2026","content_id":"bd3e1e84-c6c4-42dc-afc1-8e57c333d10f","description":"Andy Burnham gave his first speech as Prime Minister on the steps of Downing Street.","details":{"body":"<div class=\"govspeak\"><p><a rel=\"external\" href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TEz1vWZkLM\">Watch live: Prime Minister Andy Burnham arrives in Downing Street.</a></p>\n\n<p>I have just come from Buckingham Palace, where I have accepted His Majesty the King’s invitation to form a government.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>Making this a moment for reflection and new resolution.</p>\n\n<p>It requires my generation of politicians to raise our game, and rise to the new challenge.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>We will be.</p>\n\n<p>We will make this moment a circuit breaker for Britain, bringing forward the biggest changes in the last forty years.</p>\n\n<p>A new political model and a new economic model.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>Many feel as though they’re still in decline, and they don’t have the ability to turn things around.</p>\n\n<p>And that’s why we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring.</p>\n\n<p>We will take power out of here and carry it into every postcode in the land so that they can do more.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>Re-industrialising Britain, using public procurement to back British industry.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>But I can do something to give people some breathing space now, some help with the cost of living.</p>\n\n<p>And I will set out some of those measures starting tomorrow, including how we pay for them.</p>\n\n<p>We will help more young people into work by changing the education system and giving them more support, more mental health support.</p>\n\n<p>And we will build more council homes.</p>\n\n<p>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.</p>\n\n<p>We will help people to live well, building a more preventative state, investing in people’s success, rather than paying for failure.</p>\n\n<p>And that work starts now.</p>\n\n<p>I will soon go through that door behind me and issue my first instruction: to end rough sleeping in our country.</p>\n\n<p>It’s about putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government.</p>\n\n<p>I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do.</p>\n\n<p>I will give this my all, and I ask you all to pull with me.</p>\n\n<p>Let’s build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity.</p>\n\n<p>Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again.</p>\n\n<p>The moment we bring back hope.</p>\n\n<p>Thank you very much everybody.</p>\n</div>","change_history":[{"note":"First published.","public_timestamp":"2026-07-20T13:21:34Z"}],"delivered_on":"2026-07-20T00:00:00+01:00","first_public_at":"2026-07-20T14:21:34.000+01:00","image":{"alt_text":"Andy Burnham delivering his first speech as Prime Minister","url":"https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6a7f3e2892ec93e1e0329a34/Andy_Burnham_-_Prime_Minister.png"},"location":"Downing Street, London.","political":true,"speech_type_explanation":"Transcript of the speech, exactly as it was 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