‘This Is A Fabulous Moment'

The economist and Government advisor on why this is a good time for Nature

- Dieter Helm

I TURNED out to be an oddball,’ says the economist Dieter Helm. We’re in his rooms at New College, Oxford, a comfortable interior with little on the walls except a guide to apple varieties. He’s explaining how he got here, from the Essex marshes where his grandfather farmed and his father had arrived as a prisoner of war.

‘My father’s view was that the war had ruined his life,’ recalls Prof Helm. ‘He had to start again from scratch, in a country that hated Germans. We had no books in the house beyond car magazines and a German-English dictionary, but he saved everything and got an education for his children. I went to a minor prep school and public school, which I loathed, and somehow I decided to go to Oxford. I was utterly determined. I had no idea what Oxford was like, but arrived and thought I’d come to Heaven.’

He’s been in heaven ever since: ‘A beautiful college, surrounded by people who care about the public benefit, with lots of fascinating research going on. Is there a more interesting place on the planet?’

Prof Helm talks with such masterful fluency that I almost think I can understand the concepts that underlie his work: ‘Most economists are utilitarians.’ No, he’s lost me, but I can grasp some of the ideas: ‘I don’t think about people as consumers, but as citizens who are entitled to transport, electricity and now broadband.’ They’re also entitled to Nature, he adds, an asset that, once depleted beyond a certain point, can’t be renewed.