WES STREETING is not to be Britain’s next Chancellor, the Star understands.

Sources close to incoming premier Andy Burnham said there was no possibility of the former health secretary, an ultra-Blairite, taking over from Rachel Reeves.

Who will be the next chancellor is still a moot question, however, with front-runner Ed Miliband, presently energy secretary, facing opposition from big business and some trade unions.

Mr Miliband, whose friends confirm that Mr Burnham has indicated he will get the job, also faces a fresh complication in the ambitions of his brother David to return to government.

David Miliband, foreign secretary under Gordon Brown, left British politics shortly after being defeated by Ed in the 2010 Labour leadership race, and has since worked in the US.

Now, however, he is angling for a top job under Mr Burnham — incredibly foreign secretary has been suggested, which would require him being placed in the House of Lords, in the fashion of David Cameron under Rishi Sunak.

If this scenario came to pass it might make it harder for Ed Miliband to advance to chancellor. One Labour source commented that “you can’t have more Milibands than women in the top jobs.”

One task for the new chancellor will be plugging a budgetary black hole Sir Keir Starmer has left his successor to inherit as a result of his military spending boost.

A massive £4.5 billion of the £15bn increase announced this week is unfunded, meaning Mr Burnham will have to find the cash from somewhere if he sticks to Sir Keir’s plan, which Defence Secretary Dan Jarvis assured today that he would.

The outgoing PM told MPs today that the funds could be drawn from government reserves, or “headroom” as it is described in Whitehall parlance, although many economists believe this has already all been spent.

But Sir Keir ducked questions in the Commons asking whether Mr Burnham had signed up to his plan, which he boasted would leave the defence budget 27 per cent higher in real terms than when he entered office in 2024.

The incoming premier’s camp are reported as much displeased at Sir Keir’s manoeuvre, leaving them with a fiscal problem they could well have done without.

Mr Burnham had floated the idea, also backed by the Liberal Democrats, of funding the escalating arms bill through special defence bonds, an idea Sir Keir dismissed today.

He said the scheme was just borrowing by another name.