Rachel Reeves
MP for Leeds West and Pudsey · Labour · United Kingdom
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question and his work on the Treasury Committee. On pensions reform, through the Mansion House accord and Sterling 20, we have got pension funds to commit to investing more in British businesses, both through British venture schemes and in British infrastructure.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her question. As Members will know, this Government are working on plans with our NATO allies for a multilateral defence mechanism. We have already signed a treaty agreement with Finland and the Netherlands, and we are working closely with Scandinavian, Baltic and eastern European countries.”
“At a time of great global uncertainty, it is more important than ever that we deepen ties with our closest allies and biggest trading partners, whose values we share, and whose interests are bound to ours.”
“Today the Government have responded to the covid counter-fraud commissioner’s recommendations in a report that I commissioned, which confirms that the Conservative Government left the door open to more than £10 billion of pandemic fraud.”
“As I just said, the DIP will be published before the summit. It will involve more money spent more effectively, and it will meet the scale of the challenges we face. Frankly, I will take no lectures from the Conservatives, who left our armed forces, in the words of their former Defence Secretary, “hollowed out”.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for bringing the story of Darren and Nicole to this House. I hope that they and their children will benefit from the change I made to the two-child limit for universal credit, as well as from the rolling out of free breakfast clubs to all primary schools, and the introduction of free school meals for all children wh…”
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“Growth is the No. 1 mission of this Labour Government, but the truth is that it is not possible to turn things around quickly after 14 years of lacklustre growth and declining living standards under the Conservatives. We are leaving no stone unturned, which is why last week in China we secured £600 million-worth of tangible benefits for the UK economy, helping great British businesses exporting overseas.”
“The best way to grow an economy is to boost investment in an economy. The truth is that, under the Conservatives, we were the only G7 economy where investment stood at less than 20% of GDP. That is the inheritance that our party was bequeathed by the Conservatives, but we are beginning to turn that around through the creation of a national wealth fund to leverage in private sector investment, through planning reform to get Britain building again, and through pensions reform to unlock £80 billion of investment to help small and start-up businesses to grow. We are turning things around after 14 years of failure from the Conservative party.”
“I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman follows global financial markets, but borrowing costs have increased for countries around the world. What we saw under Liz Truss’s mini-Budget was unique to the United Kingdom, because it was only UK markets that were affected by the decisions of the Conservatives.”
“The national wealth fund created by this Government will get investment into industries such as carbon capture and storage, green hydrogen, ports and, indeed, steel. We were really pleased at the end of last year to be able to announce investment in carbon capture and storage in Merseyside and Teesside, securing billions of pounds of investment into those economies and securing many thousands of jobs.”
“One of the reasons for such poor investment—the lowest of all the G7 economies—is that our planning system makes it so hard to get anything done in this country. That is why the planning and infrastructure Bill, which is being brought forward by my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister, will turn that around, making it easier to invest in transport, in digital, in housing and in so much more. That is the way to get our economy growing after 14 years of failure.”
“I have had the opportunity on a couple of occasions to meet the First Minister and Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and I am sure that the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, my right hon. Friend the Member for Streatham and Croydon North (Steve Reed), would be happy to meet colleagues from Northern Ireland. The truth is that we inherited a £22 billion black hole in the public finances from the Conservatives, and in order to stabilise our public finances we had to make difficult decisions on taxes. At the moment we hear from the Opposition that they do not like the increases in taxes but they want increases in public spending. Well, they cannot have it both ways.”
“This is the first economic and financial dialogue between our two countries since 2019. Since then, other countries around the world have continued to engage with China, securing tangible benefits for their economies. I do not want UK businesses and the people working in our country to miss out, which is why this weekend we secured £600 million-worth of tangible benefits for businesses that export to China, thereby helping to create more good jobs paying decent wages in our country.”
“We have committed to having just one Budget a year to provide businesses with the certainty they need to invest, so we will have an update from the Office for Budget Responsibility in March. I also give the commitment that, as I have already said, the fiscal rules mean we will balance day-to-day spending with tax receipts, and we will get debt down as a share of GDP within the forecast period. We will continue at all times to meet those fiscal rules.”
“My hon. Friend is exactly right. We managed to secure tangible benefits for the UK economy and British exporters. At the same time, we were able to raise difficult issues that we would not have been able to raise if we were not engaged. That is the benefit of engagement: we get the economic gains and we can raise those tricky issues.”
“I am sure the hon. Gentleman is an expert in HSBC, but I would rather take the word of the chairman of HSBC, who welcomed the tangible investments and, indeed, led the financial forum that we held in China last week. I have been really clear that we will meet the fiscal rules that I set out in the Budget, and we will do that at all times. That is the commitment I made, and it is the commitment I continue to make.”
“This Government’s clean energy mission will mean that we are less reliant on foreign dictators for our basic energy needs. That is why we are investing in carbon capture and storage and floating offshore wind, and it is why we are getting rid of the previous Government’s absurd ban on onshore wind.”
“If the hon. Lady has a brief look at the documents from the Office for Budget Responsibility, she will see that the changes to the energy profits levy—taking the tax rate up from 75% to 78%, the same rate as in Norway—raises money; it does not lose money.”
“I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I raised such issues with my counterparts in China at the weekend. It is really important that, whenever we engage with foreign Governments, we also raise issues consistent with our values, including Chinese companies supplying the Russian Government with materials used in Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
“When our Prime Minister met President Xi Jinping in Rio last year, they agreed that one of the points of re-engagement is that we were able to make clear our concerns on a range of issues in a private way. I am not going to go into the details of that conversation, but I raised these issues with all the Chinese officials I met at the weekend. [ Interruption. ] The problem is that Conservative Members, for all their chuntering, did not raise these issues because they did not even engage.”
“We just have to look at what the businesses have already said about the deal we managed to secure last week. There are tangible benefits for British businesses exporting to China, helping to create more good jobs paying decent wages here in Britain. It has been welcomed by businesses. It is a shame that the Conservative party no longer stands up for British businesses.”
“As I have already said in the House today, I raised the issue of Chinese companies supplying the Russian Government. Indeed, the hon. Gentleman will know that last week, alongside the United States, we increased sanctions on Russian oil and gas to make it harder for Putin to continue to conduct his illegal war.”
“I am glad that my hon. Friend has used the 50 minutes of the statement to come up with such a good line. He is right that many people working in Harlow work in the financial services sector and will very much welcome the enhanced licences and quotas, which, incidentally, many other countries and their banks already have because their Governments have engaged with China. Those are opportunities that we have missed out on in Britain for far too long because of the six years during which we failed to be involved in an economic and financial dialogue, while other Governments cracked on and made sure they supported and stood up for their national interest.”
“As I have already set out, one of the issues I was able to raise with my counterparts in China was forced labour, particularly in Xinjiang. As I said in answer to the question from the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), I have also been really clear that any company seeking to list in London has to meet stringent requirements, as set out by the United Nations and the OECD, on labour supply and the treatment of workers.”
“I thank the hon. Gentleman for that thoughtful question. It is important that when we engage with China, we co-operate where we can, we compete where necessary, but we challenge whenever our values do not align. Like the hon. Gentleman, I care deeply about issues of religious freedom and forced labour, but that is the whole point of engaging. We have to engage in the world as it is, not in the world as we would like it to be. It is through those engagements that we are able to raise even some of the most difficult issues and be very clear about the values of our great country.”
“At the Budget, the Government announced major steps towards delivering a once-in-a-generation increase in social housing, including a £500 million boost to the affordable homes programme, increasing annual spend to £3.1 billion. The Government will set out future grant investment beyond the current affordable homes programme at phase 2 of the spending review.”
“Stoke-on-Trent has a proud industrial history and some beautiful buildings. My hon. Friend makes an important point—I will raise it with colleagues at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. The £500 million boost to the affordable homes programme also allows up to 10% of that delivery to come from acquiring existing homes. Social landlords, including some local authorities, can bid for funding to bring empty homes back into use for social housing.”
“As the right hon. Gentleman will know, home ownership fell under the previous Government. We are determined to turn that around and ensure that more people, particularly families, get on to the housing ladder. As he has confirmed, the right to buy discounts will continue, but in future every penny of that money will go back into building new social housing, so that more people can have a home of their own and a roof over their head.”
“We have brought stability back to the economy, which is the foundation for attracting investment and is vital to our growth mission. We have already launched the national wealth fund, which will mobilise over £70 billion of private investment with an expanded remit for the Office for Investment overseen by the Minister for investment. In October, we welcomed global investors from around the world to London for the international investment summit, where we were able to announce a record-breaking £63 billion of private sector investment into our economy.”
“It was a pleasure to go to my hon. Friend’s constituency in June to see the port and the wealth creation and jobs that it is bringing to Southampton. As I set out in the autumn Budget, as well as focusing on the national wealth fund’s capital investment in ports, we are committed to accelerating grid connections and ensuring that new network infrastructure is built at pace to unlock investment and growth opportunities. We are particularly focused on driving network build, including by completing the strategic planning of the energy system needed for 2030, to ensure that projects such as those my hon. Friend has mentioned in Southampton make the progress that they need to.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for the invitation. In October, the Government launched the national wealth fund to mobilise billions of pounds of investment into world-leading clean energy and growth industries. I am pleased that the national wealth fund already announced a £20 million investment in XLCC to support it in moving towards a construction phase. This will support 900 jobs, as well as making a contribution to the UK being a clean energy superpower by strengthening the home-grown energy suppliers that are fundamental to achieving our energy independence.”
“I welcome the work that my hon. Friend does on the all-party parliamentary group for Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire. As I announced in October, the UK Infrastructure Bank has now become the national wealth fund and it will expand its team and be headquartered in the brilliant city of Leeds, to realise our ambition on the national wealth fund. The national wealth fund will also have a strong regional focus, working with the mayors, including Tracy Brabin in West Yorkshire, so that we can realise the potential of all our regions, including Yorkshire. Further details on the national infrastructure and service transformation authority’s governance and location will be confirmed in due course.”
“One of the current challenges, as the hon. Gentleman will know, is that agricultural property relief is often used for tax avoidance. People are buying farmland not because they are family farmers but because they do not want to pay any inheritance tax. That is why we are reforming the system to bring in much-needed money to fund our public services, and to have a fair system with a 50% discount to inheritance tax paid on agricultural property and a 10-year period to pay that inheritance tax, interest free.”
“We were really pleased to announce an R&D budget of more than £20 billion at the autumn Budget. This is important to funding and accelerating R&D not just in the hon. Lady’s constituency but across the country. Combined with the corporate tax road map, as well as the commitment to continuing funding for Horizon, our universities and great innovators can look to the future with confidence.”
“I agree it is important that all children learn to swim, especially in our coastal communities. We had to make difficult decisions at the Budget, but I am happy to try to arrange a meeting between the hon. Gentleman and the relevant Minister to make sure the investment can go ahead at pace.”
“Sound management of the public finances means spending wisely and not sending money to fraudsters. Today, I have appointed the health expert Tom Hayhoe as our new covid counter-fraud commissioner. As chair of an NHS trust during the pandemic, he saw the urgency of getting personal protective equipment to NHS staff when they needed it. Now he is at his desk in my Department starting the work to investigate the billions of pounds lost to fraud and underperforming contracts, and instead ensuring that that money is where it belongs—in our public services.”
“My hon. Friend’s constituents in Thurrock are right to be angry about the waste and corruption that happened under the previous Government. That money belongs to the British people and in our public services, not in the pockets of fraudsters taking advantage of a national emergency. Tom Hayhoe will leave no stone unturned in investigating the carnival of fraud that the previous Government presided over, including in PPE contracts, where they recommended any attempts to reclaim that money be abandoned. Letting huge sums of taxpayers’ money be wasted would be egregious and I will not tolerate that.”
“We have published the detail of how that money is raised, but the numbers from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs are very clear: only a quarter of estates will pay any additional tax. At the moment, the vast majority of agricultural property relief is enjoyed by a very small number of very large and very expensive estates. That is not affordable, and it will not continue.”
“At the Budget in October, we had to fill a £22 billion black hole left by the previous Government. We will never have to repeat a Budget like this one, because we will not have to clear up the mess of the previous Government ever again.”
“The hon. Gentleman talks about uncertainty, but he was a Minister in the Treasury under Liz Truss, when huge damage was done to families’ and businesses’ finances. Frankly, I will take no lessons from Conservative Members on how to run the economy. We have already done phase 1 of the spending review; phase 2 will begin shortly and be concluded next year, when we will make multi-year settlements on resource departmental expenditure limits and capital budgets for the next few years.”
“The hon. Gentleman will know that there is more headroom in our Budget in October than was left by the previous Government. The lesson I have learned is that I will never play fast and loose with the public finances, as the Conservative party did, because when it did, interest rates went through the roof and inflation topped 11%, and families and businesses in our country are still paying the price for its disastrous economic management.”
“I am under no illusion about the size and scale of the challenge that we face, and the struggles of working people. That is why we choose stability and investment. The Conservatives, however, choose chaos, austerity and decline.”
“At the Budget, I wiped the slate clean after 14 years of chaos and mismanagement of our public finances, and I have brought stability back to our economy, so that we can get on with fulfilling our promise of delivering change. That means investing to fix the NHS and rebuild Britain, while ensuring that working people do not face higher taxes in their payslips. Only through economic growth can we deliver on the promise of change. That is why we have wasted no time in delivering on the Government’s No. 1 mission. We have established the national wealth fund, have kick-started planning reforms to boost long-term growth, are developing an industrial strategy, and are announcing reforms for our world-leading financial services sector, including in pensions.”
“As my hon. Friend will know, in the autumn Budget and phase 1 of the spending review, more than £1 billion was made available to local government, including £600 million for social care. The allocation of that money will be set out in the normal way over the next few weeks, so that local government is funded properly and can deliver the services that it needs to deliver.”
“I welcome the right hon. Member to his place, and look forward to many exchanges with him across the Dispatch Box. At the Budget in October, as he knows, we had to fix a £22 billion black hole in the public finances. Some of that black hole comes from the fact that we are the only G7 economy in which employment is lower than it was before the pandemic, when he was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, so we had to raise taxes to fund our public services; but never again will we have to repeat a Budget like that one, because we have now wiped the slate clean and drawn a line under the mess created by the previous Government.”
“No Chancellor of the Exchequer would write five years’ worth of Budget in their first five months in post, but I can say that we will never have to deliver a Budget like that again. We took decisions in this Budget in order to wipe the slate clean after the mismanagement, decline and chaos of the previous Government. That required us to make difficult decisions, but we were right to make them, so that we can get going with our plans to achieve growth and reform public services, and deliver the NHS and schools that our country desperately needs.”
“The tax rises in the Budget were used to provide a £22.6 billion uplift in the Department of Health and Social Care budget to ensure that our NHS is properly funded. The NHS will ensure that important services are properly funded, and those allocations will be set out in the normal way.”
“I will head to the Great Northern conference in Hull later this afternoon to speak about the impact of this Government’s policies on Yorkshire and the wider north of England. We are supporting local leaders and communities through integrated settlements, are investing in the trans-Pennine route upgrade, East West Rail and High Speed 2, and are reshaping public services.”
“In the past four weeks since the Leader of the Opposition was elected, the Conservatives have made £7 billion of commitments to cut taxes, but with no idea of how they would cut public services to afford them. I do not know how they will vote on national insurance, but we can see pretty quickly how they ended up leaving us a £22 billion black hole.”
“I happily join my hon. Friend in welcoming Mansfield’s success. We have launched a revamped fair payment code, under which signatories commit to paying their suppliers on time, and the disability finance code for entrepreneurship. That comes on top of reforms announced at the Budget to protect small businesses, such as doubling the employment allowance to £10,500, and our commitment to maintaining the small profits rate and marginal relief at their current rates and thresholds, as well as to freezing the small business multiplier for 2025-26—”
“We mention the £22 billion because that is the inheritance that the Government now have to address. We have published a line-by-line account of the £22 billion black hole that the previous Government left. We are now growing the economy through our national wealth fund, our planning reform and our pensions reform, and we are reforming our public services, so that we can deliver for the people we came here to represent.”
“Just today, the Government launched the disability finance code for entrepreneurship—something championed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business and Trade—to ensure that people from all types of backgrounds, including those with disabilities, can start and grow their own businesses.”
“That is the country’s inheritance from the Conservative Government. They had no plan to improve our public services and they had no plan to put our public finances on a sustainable footing—quite the opposite. Since 2021, there have been no detailed plans for departmental spending set out beyond this year, and the previous Government’s plans relied on a baseline for spending this year, which we now know was wrong because it did not take into account the £22 billion black hole. They also failed to budget for costs that they knew would materialise, including funding for vital compensation schemes for victims of two terrible injustices— [ Interruption. ]”
“So let me make this promise to the British people: never again will we allow a Government to play fast and loose with the public finances and never again will we allow a Government to hide the true state of our public finances from our independent forecaster. That is why I can today confirm that we will implement in full the 10 recommendations from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility’s review. The country has inherited not just broken public finances, but broken public services. The British people can see and feel that in their everyday lives: NHS waiting lists at record levels; children in portacabins as school roofs crumble; trains that do not arrive; rivers filled with polluted waste; prisons overflowing; crimes that are not investigated; and criminals who are not punished.”
“It says that the previous Government “did not provide the OBR with all the information to them” and that, had the OBR known about these “undisclosed spending pressures that have since come to light”, then its spring Budget forecast for spending would have been “materially different”. Let me be clear: that means that any comparison between today’s forecast and the OBR’s March forecast is false, because the previous Government hid the reality of their public spending plans. Yet at the very same Budget, they made another £10 billion-worth of cuts to national insurance. It was the height of irresponsibility, and they knew it. They had run out of road, and they called an election to avoid making difficult choices.”
“In July, I exposed a £22 billion black hole at the heart of the previous Government’s plans—a series of promises that they made, but had no money to deliver—covered up from the British people and covered up from this House. The Treasury’s reserve, set aside for genuine emergencies, was spent three times over just three months into the financial year. Today, on top of the detailed document that I provided to the House in July, the Government are publishing a line-by-line breakdown of the £22 billion black hole that we inherited, which shows hundreds of unfunded pressures on the public finances this year, and into the future too. The Office for Budget Responsibility has published its own review of the circumstances around the spring Budget forecast.”