Rachel Reeves is set to announce the creation of an economic advisory council to lead Labour’s core “national mission” of economic expansion following the party’s recent landslide general election victory.
The Council will be chaired by John Van Reenen, a leading expert on innovation and former Downing Street policy adviser to Tony Blair. Van Reenen, now a professor at the London School of Economics, will lead the pivotal body, which is based in the Treasury.
The council will initially have four members, including Anna Valero, a senior fellow in politics at the London School of Economics. Valero, known for her expertise in productivity, previously served on Jeremy Hunt’s economic advisory council, which was disbanded last year. She was also among the economists who endorsed Labour’s economic strategies in a pre-election letter to the Guardian.
Reeves seeks to draw on a diverse range of ideas and insights from independent experts through the council. She has pledged to usher in a “decade of national renewal” by strengthening the foundations of the economy.
Key appointments to the council include Spencer Thompson, a former economist at the Institute for Public Policy Research, and Neil Amin-Smith, a Cambridge-educated economist and former violinist in Grammy-winning band Clean Bandit. Thompson has been advising Labour on economic policy since 2020, while Amin-Smith moved to Labour from the Treasury two years ago.
In addition to setting up the council, Labour is restructuring Whitehall’s operations to deliver its government agenda. This restructuring includes creating “task councils” comprising leading figures from business, economics and other specialist fields.