Andy Burnham is on course to become the UK's next prime minister after Sir Keir Starmer announced he was stepping down.

The former mayor of Greater Manchester remains the only Labour MP standing to replace him as the party's leader, with a slew of potential rivals standing aside and supporting his bid for power.

It means he could enter Downing Street as soon as mid-July, just a few weeks after returning to Parliament after nearly a decade away from Westminster.

In debates and media interviews during his successful campaign in the Makerfield by-election, he offered glimpses of how he might seek to use power.

Now he has used a speech in Manchester to sketch out further details of a potential blueprint for office. Here is what we know so far.

In his speech, Burnham promised the biggest-ever "rebalancing of power" away from Whitehall, branding the UK one of the "most over-centralised countries in the world".

He said this would be achieved by handing a new No 10 unit based in Manchester the task of giving English regions more control in areas including housing and transport.

He also promised new opportunities to extend existing devolution settlements in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by taking power "deeper down".

The unit, he said, would be tasked with promoting "equivalent living conditions" across Britain, borrowing from an idea in the German constitution.

Government departments, he said, should also support both local councils and regional strategic authorities with "staffing and resources".

This could be an area where he looks to build on the policies of the Starmer government, which was in the process of extending regional mayors beyond the main urban areas in England.

Rachel Reeves was also due to set out a roadmap at the next Budget, external for how regional mayors could be given control of a share of income tax raised in their areas.

In his speech Burnham said he wanted to enable all parts of the UK to take "greater public control" of the water and energy sectors, with the government producing 10-year plans to reduce costs.

As an example he pointed to Greater Manchester's bus network, where private operators bid to run services on a franchise basis, with local authorities controlling fares, timetables and routes.

However, he is yet to spell out what an equivalent model for water and energy companies would mean in practice.

Burnham has been at pains to point out his plans do not necessarily mean full nationalisation of utility firms, a move that would cost many billions of pounds.

One area where he has advocated direct public ownership is Thames Water, a move that is already on the cards after government objected to a proposed rescue deal for the debt-laden company in June.

Burnham has promised the "biggest council house building programme since the post-War period" - an era when local authorities regularly built between 100,000 and 150,000 homes annually, around 10 times the rate of more recent years.

However, he is yet to offer details of how such a huge increase in construction would be funded.

The pledge would be all the more challenging to meet given that Burnham has promised to stick to the current government's debt and spending rules.

He has also called for the entire 10-year £39bn affordable housing budget for England towards homes for social rent, the cheapest and most heavily subsidised form of publicly-funded housing.

Currently some of the budget goes towards "affordable" housing, where rents are more similar to market rates, as well as affordable home ownership schemes.

In his speech he also outlined a desire to see higher density residential development in towns in order to protect more green spaces from development.

Some of his other policies in this area - including restricting Right to Buy - have already been put in train by the current government.

A centrepiece of Burnham's view of taxation is that the UK overtaxes work, whilst at the same time undertaxing wealth.

This has led to speculation he could raise capital gains tax - paid on profits made when selling assets such as shares and property aside from a main home - although this is not something he has said himself.

One important pledge he has made is that he would stick to Labour's pledge at the last election not to raise the main rates of income tax, VAT or National Insurance.

During his Makerfield campaign, he also said he wanted to "have a proper look" at potentially raising the £12,570 starting threshold for income tax.

He has previously suggested that both council tax and stamp duty, a tax paid by homebuyers, could be replaced with a new tax on the value of land - an idea he has been advocating since as far back as 2010.

Burnham has long supported the idea that social care should become a more universal system.

In a speech in 2023, he suggested this could be funded by replacing inheritance tax with a new "national care levy". He has suggested everyone would pay this new tax, whilst "obviously the wealthiest would pay the most".

The Health Foundation think tank estimated in 2024 that an NHS-style model of universal and comprehensive care could cost around £17bn in additional funding by 2035/36.

A cheaper option would be a Scottish-style system, with basic protection for everyone against some care costs, which would cost around £7bn by 2035/36 to replicate in England, according to the think tank.

During his Makerfield campaign, Burnham said he did not "resile" from his previous stance, but is yet to offer further details of how the idea would be implemented.

How to improve England's social care system, where subsidised care is currently reserved for those with the highest needs and fewest assets, is a question that has bedevilled politicians for years.

Labour promised to overhaul the system in opposition, but upon taking office commissioned a review of funding that is not due to report until 2028. Burnham has said he would bring that forward to the end of this year.

Like the Sunak government, Labour has reduced levels of immigration by tightening visa requirements.

During his Makerfield campaign, Burnham said net migration "needs to fall further", although he has not set a specific target.

One area where he could have an internal battle on his hands is over proposals to lengthen the time that foreign nationals already living in the UK would have to wait before they can qualify for permanent residence.

Earlier this year, Burnham urged Labour MPs to heed warnings from the party's former deputy leader Angela Rayner about the impact of the changes.

But when running to be an MP himself, he said he supported the "broad thrust" of the plans, unveiled earlier this year by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

In his speech Burnham has said he wants to see a "fair and lasting" reduction to the UK's welfare bill, amid rising spending on health and disability benefits in recent years.

But he has not set out plans to change the level of benefits payments, or how people qualify to receive them.

Instead, he argues the claimant count can be reduced by improving employment support and "in-work" mental health support.

In his speech Burnham said he wanted to preserve "sovereign manufacturing" capability in key areas such as steel, defence, energy, and farming.

He said he planned to make it easier for British companies to win public contracts, criticising the government for "chasing cut-price deals around the world".

During the by-election campaign, his team sent out a policy document promising a cut in business rates for pubs and music venues by 20%.

That would be paid for, they said, by higher taxes of out-of-town warehouses used by online retailers like Amazon.

Burnham also wants to raise the threshold at which business rates kick in, taking lots of small high street shops out of paying altogether.

Burnham told BBC Newsnight he was "sympathetic" to complaints from smaller business about last year's increase to the National Insurance they pay on the salary of their employees, without fully committing to unpicking the change.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Burnham's campaign for the Makerfield seat did not yield a huge amount of detail about his plans for international affairs.

The 56 year-old has said he would like the UK to rejoin the EU within his lifetime, but he did not want to "re-run the [2016] referendum now".

His stance on relations with the EU would soon be put to the test, as he inherits a series of live negotiations on youth visas, food regulations and plans to relink the UK to the EU's carbon pricing regime.

Defence spending, which prompted the resignation of Starmer's defence secretary John Healey earlier in June, would provide another headache.

The outgoing Labour leader is determined to free up more cash for a long-delayed military investment plan, which he hopes to publish himself before leaving office, risking a clash with Burnham over the scale of the plans.

A key challenge would also be how Burnham seeks to handle US President Donald Trump. He has said the UK should seek a "good relationship" with the US, whilst being willing to say "if we can't agree with them".