Who is Torsten Bell? Labour rising star tipped to be next chancellor

Torsten Bell, the pensions secretary, is said to have accompanied the chancellor to every key meeting before the financial statement with the Office for Budget Responsibility.

While there is nothing unusual in a chancellor consulting with a trusted team, it is less common for such a close counsel to be an MP of only 18 months who is not a household name.

However, those in the know have said that Mr Bell has been well-regarded behind the scenes at Labour for a long time and his inclusion in the top circles comes as no surprise.

“It’s clear that high-taxers like Torsten Bell are calling the shots in the Treasury,” shadow chancellor Mel Stride told the Telegraph this week.

“Rachel Reeves delivered a Benefits Budget paid for by raising taxes on working people.

“It should come as no surprise that behind the scenes it was being substantially written by someone who has spent his career campaigning for higher taxes and higher welfare spending.”

While Mr Bell would disagree with the Conservative’s phrasing, it is true that the Autumn Budget saw income tax rises, which will affect 1.7 million. Ms Reeves also froze thresholds, meaning people will be paying the tax for the first time or shifted into higher bands.

“The Chancellor led a Budget that delivered on the people’s priorities – cutting waiting lists, cutting debt and borrowing, and cutting the cost of living,” the Treasury told the Telegraph, appearing to play down the singular role of Mr Bell.

“She attended and led all meetings that the political team had with the OBR in the run-up to the Budget.”

Sir Keir Starmer has said on multiple occasions that Ms Reeves is “going nowhere,” but behind the scenes the chancellor’s team is reportedly under further influence from a rising star.

But who is Torsten Bell, the “smart” and “hard working” Labour stalwart, who could be due a breakthrough in 2026?

Who is Torsten Bell?

Torsten Bell has been MP for Swansea West since July 2024, succeeding his fellow Labour member Geraint Davies.

While now living much of the time in Wales, he was born in Greenwich, brought up in Kent, is of Scottish-Swedish descent and has a twin brother called Olaf. The 43-year-old has two children.

Prior to his entry into the political frontline, Mr Bell was director of the left-wing think tank, the Resolution Foundation - a role which Mr Stride said had led him to come to the treasury office armed with pro-taxation policies.

He spent some of the 2000s working within the Treasury and was promoted to work under Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, before being made Ed Miliband’s head of policy from 2010 to 2015, the year of his general election defeat.

Former Labour PR chief Tom Baldwin told the Times that Mr Bell had exhibited “proper brilliance” from a young age and stunned his party bigwigs with his frank economic assessments with where they were going wrong and “what they needed to do to fix it”.

Since January, he has been the pensions secretary, and it was within that role that he made his first appearance on LBC, telling Tom Swarbrick that the pension age could rise to 70, and also defending policies on housing and tax.

Although his governmental positions have been relatively recent, Mr Bell has been tipped for a breakthrough for some time, appearing in Politico’s Power 40 list in 2023, while he was at the Resolution Foundation. His book Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back was released last year through Penguin.

He had been behind the scenes at Labour for a number of years and is said to be the aide responsible for the idea of Ed Miliband’s much-derided stone of promises. He also admitted that he would struggle to live on £70 a week, the amount which many benefits were reduced to.

However, his talents and industry behind the scenes have clearly impressed many in Labour. Ms Reeves evidently has respect for his financial opinions and Sir Keir is rumoured to be wanting to appoint him as an organiser of the party’s 2026 Senedd election push.

“Colleagues remember him as razor-sharp and able to quickly get to grips with the complexities of the Treasury, even during the pandemic,” a Politics Home profile said of him.

“He’s very creative, and came with a lot of energy,” a Treasury official added. “[He was] a key architect in the Chancellor’s Plan for Jobs.”

Prior to the Autumn Budget, the Times called him “Labour’s economic mastermind” and, more recently, the Telegraph - also not a Labour favouring paper, said he could be the next chancellor. The New Statesman called him one of Labour’s “sharpest minds”.

Despite this, it remains to be seen if he has the necessary charisma to take the role of chancellor, one of the most prominent and picked-apart political positions. “[He is] very smart, but not a people person,” a Labour insider is said to have told the Times.

It could be that 2026 proves to be a key year for Mr Bell, and one where he might emerge from his reputation as a hard-working policy maker behind the scenes and take the limelight at last.