Andy Burnham has set out an ambitious blueprint to overhaul the way Britain is governed, promising what he calls “the biggest rebalancing of power our country has seen” if he succeeds Keir Starmer as prime minister.

Speaking at a museum in Manchester, the former Greater Manchester mayor and current Labour leadership frontrunner argued that Westminster’s grip on decision-making has left the UK “one of the most over-centralised countries in the world”. He pledged to hand sweeping new powers to regional mayors and local leaders, including control over transport, housing, skills and elements of welfare policy.

“I am going to give Britain the circuit breaker it needs,” Burnham told an invited audience, promising to put power “in the hands of the people and places who can use it best”. Raising living standards, he said, required not just economic reform but a fundamental shift in political power away from London.

Burnham’s pitch comes as Labour struggles to turn its election victory into sustained economic improvement. Growth has been fragile, with global shocks and higher inflation squeezing households and public finances. Against that backdrop, Burnham insisted his plans would be underpinned by fiscal discipline, reiterating his commitment to existing borrowing limits and a drive to reduce the welfare bill through higher employment and better local support rather than deep cuts.

Central to his vision is a new “No. 10 North”, an extended prime ministerial operation based in Manchester to coordinate devolution and regional growth. From there, he said, a future Burnham government would “create a more streamlined state with a clearer purpose: to power up all parts of the country and put a laser-like focus on growth and regeneration”.

He promised that this northern hub would oversee “the biggest council house building programme since the post-war period”, though he stopped short of detailing how such an expansion would be funded.

Burnham framed his agenda as “Manchesterism” – a brand of business-friendly socialism that rejects trickle-down economics and seeks greater public control over key services such as transport, water and energy. While he did not explicitly commit to full renationalisation, he signalled a tougher stance on private operators and a continuation of moves to bring rail services back into public hands.

Positioning himself as an ally of small firms and the creative economy, Burnham proposed cutting business rates for pubs and music venues and vowed to back “scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and creatives” to make Britain “the innovation nation of the next decade”.