Alan Milburn attacks Miliband for not being “ambitious“ enough on the minimum wage – is he right?

The Labour leader's plan to raise the main rate to £8 by 2020 is more radical than Milburn suggests.

(Photo By Former Labour cabinet minister Alan Milburn pictured during the 2005 general election. Photograph: Getty Images.)

Alan Milburn is regarded by most in Labour as the epitome of Blairite centrism and moderation. But today, in his capacity as chair of the government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, he’s attacking Ed Miliband for not being radical enough on the minimum wage.

In the commission’s second annual State of the Nation report, he warns that Miliband’s proposed rate of “at least” £8 an hour by 2020 is “not at all ambitious as it implies a slower rate of increase between 2014 and 2020 than there was between 1999 and 2014.