LONDON (Reuters) – Rishi Sunak became Britain’s prime minister on Tuesday following a meeting with King Charles.

Below are the highlights from Sunak’s first speech as prime minister outside his No. 10 Downing Street office:

ON THE ECONOMY

“Our country is facing a profound economic crisis. The aftermath of COVID still lingers. Putin’s war in Ukraine has destabilised energy markets and supply chains the world over.”

“I will place economic stability and confidence at the heart of this government’s agenda. This will mean difficult decisions to come.”

MISTAKES WERE MADE

“I want to pay tribute to my predecessor Liz Truss. She was not wrong to want to improve growth in this country. It is a noble aim. And I admired her restlessness to create change.

“But some mistakes were made — not born of ill will, or bad intentions. Quite the opposite, in fact. But mistakes, nonetheless. And I have been elected as leader of my party and your prime minister, in part to fix them.”

ON BORIS JOHNSON

“I will always be grateful to Boris Johnson for his incredible achievements as prime minister and I treasure his warmth and generosity of spirit. And I know he would agree that the mandate my party earned in 2019 is not the sole property of any one individual. It is a mandate that belongs to and unites all of us. And the heart of that mandate is our manifesto. I will deliver on its promise. “

ON THE CHALLENGE AHEAD

“I fully appreciate how hard things are. And I understand too that I have work to do to restore trust, after all that has happened. All I can say is that I am not daunted. I know the high office I have accepted and I hope to live up to its demands.”

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar and Alistair Smout; editing by William James)