{"id":674655,"date":"2026-07-05T07:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T07:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/674655\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T07:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T07:16:10","slug":"make-ed-miliband-chancellor-ex-chief-treasury-adviser-tells-andy-burnham-economics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/674655\/","title":{"rendered":"Make Ed Miliband chancellor, ex-chief Treasury adviser tells Andy Burnham | Economics"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former chief economic adviser to the Treasury has called on Andy Burnham to appoint Ed Miliband<\/a> as chancellor, arguing the energy secretary has a \u201cbold\u201d vision to revive the economy.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Stern, a professor at the London School of Economics<\/a> who was a senior figure in the Treasury during Gordon Brown\u2019s tenure, said only Miliband had the experience and the strategic vision to accelerate investment and rebuild public trust in the state\u2019s ability to \u201cget things done\u201d.<\/p>\n

Burnham has yet to name who would be his chancellor if he becomes prime minister later this month. Miliband, the former health secretary Wes Streeting and the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, have all been tipped to replace Rachel Reeves as chancellor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Andy Burnham, with Ed Miliband, has yet to name who would be his chancellor if he becomes prime minister later this month. Photograph: Chris J Ratcliffe\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Stern, who is also a former chief economist at the World Bank, joined a growing number of senior academics and officials in calling for Miliband to be handed the keys to No 11 and take control of the government\u2019s \u00a31.4tn annual spending.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think of him as competent and strategic. I would also say bold, though I am not using the language of Yes, Minister,\u201d Stern said, referring to the 80s BBC comedy<\/a> in which civil servants used the word bold as a synonym for rash and foolish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean bold in the sense that we have to have a clear direction showing where investments need to occur and the ability to explain why it should involve an increase in spending of two or three percentage points of national income.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the kind of sums we need to invest in clean, efficient and modern infrastructure, particularly around energy, cities and transport. That will be a big part of the growth story \u2013 creating the environment in which private capital can flourish and investments in human capital can also flourish.\u201d<\/p>\n

The former chief economic adviser to the Treasury was the author of the 2006 Stern review on the economics of the climate crisis, in which he argued that the benefits of strong and early action far outweighed the economic costs of not acting.<\/p>\n

He backed Miliband\u2019s moratorium on additional drilling licences in the North Sea<\/a> for oil and gas, saying it would be a diversion to keep old industries alive beyond their useful life.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvesting in North Sea oil is not a strategy for the technologies of the 21st century. The key is that we have got to invest in people and places as old industries wane,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

Nicholas Stern, pictured in 2021, backs Ed Miliband\u2019s moratorium on additional drilling licences in the North Sea for oil and gas Photograph: Yves Herman\/Reuters<\/p>\n

He said places such as Aberdeen should benefit from huge investment in new technologies, but the impetus would be lost if the oil industry continued to be propped up.<\/p>\n

Miliband would also be a respected figure on the world stage, said Stern, after many years attending climate crisis conferences, where the UK was a leader.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe UK looking flaky on [oil drilling] has very serious consequences. It is not simply that we are 0.8% of emissions. Our arguments on climate change and the technologies of the future carry weight beyond our GDP or share of emissions,\u201d Stern said.<\/p>\n

He added that he believed Miliband had deeper knowledge of the industrial strategy and economy after years in the Treasury as an adviser.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got to the Treasury in 2003 and was second permanent secretary and head of the government economic service, and he was a youngish chair of the council of economic advisers. So we interacted quite a bit, and had many common interests. You could see he understood and was dynamic,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last month, Labour\u2019s deputy leader, Lucy Powell, said Miliband would make \u201ca good chancellor\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Josh Ryan-Collins, a professor of economics and finance at University College London\u2019s Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose<\/a>, said interpretations of Miliband\u2019s support for net zero as a costly mistake were misguided. \u201cThe problem is not ambitious climate policy per se, but the absence of willingness from the Treasury to mobilise resources to support affected workers and regions,\u201d Ryan-Collins said.<\/p>\n

He added that Miliband as chancellor<\/a> would make the case for green investment as \u201cthe only way to stabilise the UK economy in the long term and create the decent, well-paid jobs that the poorer regions of the country desperately need\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former chief economic adviser to the Treasury has called on Andy Burnham to appoint Ed Miliband as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":674656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-674655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=674655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/674656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}