British PM Andy Burnham gathers cabinet for first time

New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham gathers his cabinet for its first meeting in London.

Addressing the UK's cost of living crisis is at the top of his agenda.

New British Prime Minister Andy Burnham tells his just-formed cabinet he would lead a "cost-of-living government" focused on easing the economic burden felt by millions of people in the UK.

He announces a tax cut on energy bill that will save the average household about 45 pounds a year.

The cut takes effect October 1st, with the funding coming from scrapping a plan for digital ID cards announced by his predecessor Keir Starmer.

ANDY BURNHAM: "We need to be a cost of living government and getting that cost of living down and looking at all possible ways of doing that. I talked yesterday outside in Downing Street about bringing back hope. And that's got to be us, isn't it? We've got to do that, we can do that, and we've made a start today. We've made the announcement about removing VAT from household electricity bills. It's not everything, but it shows our determination to do something about people's living standards."

Burnham inherits an economy that was improving until the Iran war upended forecasts and growth is now widely predicted to slow over this year while inflation rises.

An analyst gives his take on the mammoth task that faces Britain's leader.

Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics NEIL LEE: "So he's really constrained by what he can do. So the UK has a large public debt and that debt means that it is hard for him to raise spending on any of the things which he'd like to do. But at the same time, UK tax rates, many voters won't want him to raise taxes on them. So we have already have quite high taxes on people at the top. We have relatively low, by international standards, taxes on the sort of average person, but these people are being squeezed by higher costs of living, and those are exactly the people he wants to help, so he's in a difficult position."