Andy Burnham becomes the UK's new prime minister

Andy Burnham has become the UK's new prime minister.

In his first speech in his new job, he said he knows people are "fed up with politics" and he wants to make "this moment a circuit breaker for Britain".

He said "we will change politics, to make it more collaborative, more about problem solving than point scoring".

Mr Burnham is the UK's fifth prime minister in four years. He replaces Sir Keir Starmer, who won a general election in 2024.

Andy Burnham used his first address outside of Downing Street to lay out some of his goals.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester said he will reveal his 10-year plan for the country soon, but his speech revealed policies.

They included taking power out of Westminster (in London) to "every postcode in the land, so they can do more".

He also stressed that he wanted to end rough sleeping in our country.

Rough sleeping is a type of homelessness, when someone sleeps on the streets or in empty buildings.

This promise is very similar to a pledge he made in 2017, when he became Mayor of Greater Manchester.

He gave some of his wage to help rough sleepers and said rough sleeping would be completely gone in Manchester by 2020.

Whilst the numbers have gone down, there is still a problem with rough sleeping in the city.

Earlier today, Sir Keir Starmer officially resigned as prime minister, but he had decided to step down from the job last month.

That's because he had lost the support of many of the MP's in the Labour Party he led after poor election results in England, Scotland and Wales.

In his goodbye speech, he said that he is "confident that Britain is now stronger and fairer than it was two years ago", and said Andy Burnham "has my full support".

After his speech Sir Keir Starmer then travelled to Buckingham Palace, where he met with the King and resigned.

The King then met with Andy Burnham, and the new Labour leader was formally appointed prime minister and asked to form a government.

Andy Burnham was previously a Member of Parliament (MP) for 16 years and also served in government as Health Secretary, before becoming the Mayor of Greater Manchester in 2017.

He also stood to become leader of the Labour Party twice before, but was unsuccessful on both occasions.

After Sir Keir Starmer announced he was stepping down as PM, Mr Burnham entered the race to replace him and on Friday he won the Labour leadership contest.

Along with the top job, comes a big to-do list.

BBC Political Editor Chris Mason says a big challenge for the new PM will be "introducing himself to the country".

This is because Andy Burnham is entering Downing Street without winning a general election or even a real Labour leadership contest, which is often where the public get to know the candidate.

Putting together a top-notch cabinet is also important.

"Assembling the team is absolutely key. That will have taken up a lot of head space in the past couple of days," says Chris.

He will also need to get used to the huge step up from being a mayor, to being the prime minister.

"Nothing prepares you for the step up of being prime minister. It's not just the scrutiny, the questions, the cameras, but the sheer volume of decisions... that come at you every minute of the day."

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch - who is the leader of the opposition - spoke yesterday about the new PM.

"The job is not a popularity contest, it is making the lives of all of the people outside this building better and he has not said what he's going to do. It's all airy fairy stuff."

Andy Burnham will also have the challenge of keeping all of his own MPs onside too.

Chris Mason said: "Now it's his moment, can he do what so many of his predecessors failed to do, which is actually, to stick around here for a little while, and not get turfed out?"