Make Ed Miliband chancellor, ex-chief Treasury adviser tells Andy Burnham | Economics

He called on Andy Burnham, the Treasury’s former chief economic adviser, to appoint Ed Miliband as chancellor, arguing that the energy secretary had a “bold” vision to stimulate the economy.

London School of Economics professor Nicholas Stern, a senior figure at the Treasury during Gordon Brown’s tenure, said Miliband alone had the experience and strategic vision to step up investment and rebuild public confidence in the state’s ability to “get things done”.

Burnham has not yet announced who will be chancellor if she becomes prime minister this month. It has been claimed that Miliband, former health minister Wes Streeting and home affairs minister Shabana Mahmood will be appointed as chancellor instead of Rachel Reeves.

Stern, who is also the World Bank’s former chief economist, has called on a growing number of senior academics and officials to hand Miliband the keys to No 11 and take control of the government’s £1.4 trillion annual spending.

“I think of him as competent and strategic. I would also say brave, but I’m not using the Yes, Minister language,” said Stern, referring to an ’80s BBC comedy in which civil servants used the word brave as a synonym for impetuous and stupid.

“I mean bold in the sense that we need to have a clear direction of where investments should be made and be able to explain why this should require an increase in spending of national income by two or three percentage points.

“This is the kind of sums we need to invest in clean, efficient and modern infrastructure, especially in energy, cities and transport. This will be a big part of the growth story; creating the environment where private capital can thrive and where investments in human capital can also thrive.”

The former chief economic adviser to the Treasury was the author of a 2006 Stern review on the economics of the climate crisis; In this review he argued that the benefits of strong and early action far outweigh the economic costs of inaction.

He backed Miliband’s moratorium on additional drilling licenses for oil and gas in the North Sea, saying it would be a diversion to keep legacy industries alive beyond their useful lives.

“Investing in North Sea oil is not a strategy for 21st century technologies. The point is that we have to invest in people and places as legacy industries languish,” Stern said.

He said places like Aberdeen should benefit from huge investment in new technologies, but momentum would be lost if the oil industry continued to be subsidized.

After many years of attending climate crisis conferences led by Britain, Stern said Miliband will also be a respected figure on the world stage.

“England looks uncertain [oil drilling] It has very serious consequences. It’s not just that we account for 0.8% of emissions. Our arguments about climate change and future technologies carry weight beyond our GDP or emissions share,” Stern said.

He added that he believed Miliband had a deeper knowledge of industrial strategy and economics after his years as an adviser to the Treasury.

“I joined the Treasury in 2003 and was the second permanent secretary and head of the government’s economic service, who was also a young head of the council of economic advisers. So we interacted quite a bit and had a lot of common interests. You could see that he was understanding and dynamic,” he said.

Last month Labor deputy leader Lucy Powell said Miliband would be a “good chancellor”.

Josh Ryan-Collins, professor of economics and finance at University College London Institute for Innovation and Public PurposeHe said comments that Miliband’s support for net zero was a costly mistake were misguided. “The problem is not ambitious climate policy per se, but the Treasury’s lack of willingness to mobilize resources to support affected workers and regions,” Ryan-Collins said.

He added that as chancellor, Miliband would push green investment as “the only way to stabilize the UK economy in the long term and create the decent, well-paid jobs that poorer parts of the country desperately need”.