Rachel Reeves MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  It was great to be with my hon. Friend in Warwickshire just a couple of weeks ago to welcome some of the investment, through our industrial strategy and our spending review, which will turbocharge the British economy, creating more good jobs and paying decent wages in all parts of the country, including in Warwickshire.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  This Government increased the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500, and that means 865,000 employers will pay no national insurance at all. Indeed, half of employers will either gain or see no change. It was also welcome that the Lloyds business barometer showed business confidence at a nine-year high, with a particular uptick in retail. I cannot comment on an individual business, but that is the system nationwide.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  In the Budget last year, we increased taxes by £40 billion, but without affecting the pay packets of ordinary working people. We did not increase their national insurance, their income tax or their VAT, and we did not go ahead with the wrong-headed increase in fuel duty that was put in place by the Conservative party. We are protecting working people; the Conservative party picked their pockets time and again.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We made a commitment in our manifesto not to increase the key taxes that working people pay, and we stick by those commitments because, unlike the Conservative party, we stick by our manifesto.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  At the spending review, we were able to build on the investment we had already made in Merseyside and Teesside with Track-1 of carbon capture and storage, and put investment into both the Acorn project in Scotland and Viking CCS in the Humber to support the Government’s ambitions for Britain to lead the way in carbon capture and storage, creating more good jobs in all parts of the country, including in Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We are proud as a Government to back Rolls-Royce, and to have it as our preferred provider for the small modular reactor programme, resulting in lower bills and more good jobs, particularly in Derbyshire.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The hon. Lady, and other Members, will have seen the reference in the spending review to a real-terms uplift in schools spending in every single year of the current Parliament, as well as additional capital investment to help rebuild the schools whose roofs were literally crumbling under the last Conservative Government. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary will publish a Green Paper on SEND reform in the autumn, and we have extended local authorities’ statutory override for SEND education for a further two years while we bring in those reforms. This Government want to ensure that mainstream schools are more inclusive for all children.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Let us look at the record so far. There are 385,000 more jobs in the UK economy today than there were when Labour came to office a year ago, which is more than 1,000 jobs a day. So businesses are voting with their feet and taking on more workers, because of the policies of this Labour Government compared with the Tory policies that took our economy down.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The problem with the Conservatives is that they support all the funding, but they do not support any of the ways of funding it. Agricultural property relief means that estates worth more than £3 million will now be taxed at half the rate at which inheritance tax is usually charged. That can be repaid over a 10-year period, interest-free. I think that is the right and fair settlement, given the fiscal environment we face.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, I can absolutely give my assurance to Jackie, and to other people who are currently claiming PIP, that they will see absolutely no change in their entitlement. That is what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced to the Chamber yesterday: everybody who is currently on those benefits will see no change whatever. The Timms review, which will be co-produced with disabled people and those who represent them, will build a new system for the future.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  We are increasing transport investment by 1.9% in real terms after HS2 in every year of the spending review period. We are also extending the bus fare cap, which is particularly beneficial to rural areas.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. He will know that this Government have already invested through the National Wealth Fund in the tin mine in his constituency, bringing good-quality jobs paying decent wages to the people of Cornwall, as advocated by Cornish MPs. However, there is more we can do through the National Wealth Fund, including investing in our ports, which is absolutely vital for clean, cheap energy and for creating good jobs in this country, including in Cornwall.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I would take that a bit more seriously if the Conservatives were not voting against the welfare reforms this evening, and if they had not committed to fully reversing the winter fuel changes, which would cost a further £400 million that they cannot explain. I am always grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his questions, because he always offers a useful lesson in what not to do. Even George Osborne now says that the shadow Chancellor has “no credible economic plan”. I will give the shadow Chancellor this: he knows a thing or two about welfare spending, because under his watch, the UK became the only country in the G7 with an unemployment rate stuck below pre-pandemic levels. Under his watch, the cost of working-age inactivity rose by £15.7 billion a year.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  The Government are delivering on the priorities of the British people. Yesterday, the Office for National Statistics confirmed that the UK was the fastest-growing G7 nation in the first quarter of this year. Since the election, this Labour Government have brought £120 billion of private investment into our economy. There have been four interest rate cuts, lowering the cost of mortgages, and 384,000 new jobs—more than 1,000 jobs a day—since this Government were elected. Real wages increased more in the first 10 months of this Labour Government than they did in the first 10 years of the last Conservative Government, and we have a £1,400 pay rise for a full-time worker on the national living wage. That is the difference that this Government are making after 14 years of mismanagement by the Conservatives.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  I am not going to take lessons from the Conservatives: they increased taxes 25 times. When they increased taxes, it was always ordinary working people who paid the price. In our Budget last year, we protected the payslips of ordinary working people by not increasing their income tax, their national insurance or their VAT, and we did not go ahead with the increase in fuel duty that the Conservatives had planned. Instead of talking down the British economy, why do the Conservatives not back the plans that are backed by British businesses to grow our economy and make working people better off?

• 1 Jul 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  It is a bit rich for anyone in the Conservative party to mention black holes, after the one that they left for us to clear up. The hon. Gentleman will have seen the Lloyds business barometer, which has recently been published and shows that business confidence is now at a nine-year high, led by increases in confidence in retail and manufacturing. That report referenced the impact of the spending review on boosting business confidence—a recognition that this Government are backing Britain and backing Britain’s businesses.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Lady knows, the changes we have made to the welfare Bill will mean that nobody who is currently receiving personal independence payments will have a cut, so I just do not think the premise of her question is correct. When we debate the welfare Bill today, we will be voting for the biggest increase in the universal credit standard allowance for a generation and protecting those people with the most severe conditions from having to be reassessed for their condition, which is degrading. We have got rid of the Tories’ work capability assessment changes, which the courts said were illegal, and we are putting £1 billion into back-to-work support. At the same time, we are investing £29 billion in the NHS. That is possible only because of the rise in national insurance increase on business, which the Liberal Democrats opposed—and yet that is how we are funding our NHS.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  The Government protected the smallest businesses from changes to national insurance by increasing the employment allowance from £5,000 to £10,500. That means that this year 865,000 employers will pay no national insurance contributions at all, and more than half will either gain or see no change to their national insurance contributions.

• 1 Jul 2025 · Employer National Insurance Contributions · Hansard source

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  The stability that this Government have returned to the economy has meant that the Bank of England has been able to cut interest rates four times in the last year, taking hundreds of pounds off people’s mortgages—there was such a big impact in that regard under the last Government. The reasons for the increase in business confidence also include the industrial strategy publication, the spending review and the three trade deals, all of which are boosting business confidence and have helped to create 385,000 new jobs in Britain since the last general election.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is one of many MPs who has spoken to me about the need to reform the Green Book. I thank him for feeding in his concerns about the ways in which the Treasury has previously looked at requests for investment. I am pleased for the people of Rossendale and Darwen that we can start making a difference to the communities that were forgotten about for 14 years under the Conservatives. I was also very pleased to be in his constituency at the end of last year to open the 100th banking hub on a local high street.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend, the Chair of the Education Committee, for her question. I appreciate her welcoming the investment in children’s social care, in skills and in schools—issues that she knows and cares passionately about. In the spending review, we were able to set out a total of £86 billion of investment in research and development, much of it spent through our universities and research institutes, but I am certain that the Education Secretary or the relevant Minister will meet my hon. Friend to talk about the wider allocation from this spending review.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  The allocations have been made to Government Departments, and the Treasury is not going to micromanage every scheme, so it will be up to Departments to allocate the money in the way they choose. I am sure that the Transport Secretary will come to the House and set out those plans.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the reforms we have introduced at the Treasury—the reform to the fiscal rules to unlock money for investment, the reform of financial transactions to enable more money to be spent through public finance institutions, and particularly the reform of the Green Book. She is absolutely right to mention the importance of human capital, which is why we have announced in the spending review significant investment in skills and in the early years to ensure that children are ready for school.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  Stories like that are exactly why the Deputy Prime Minister and I have prioritised investment in affordable homes. Nobody should have to live in those conditions in the 21st century—and, with the reforms we are making and the money we are putting in, they will not have to for much longer.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for welcoming the changes to the Green Book, which will better enable the Government to invest, and will stop the situation whereby the Treasury used to wield the Green Book against local communities when it came to the investments that they wanted to make. This was a good spending review for the east midlands, as my hon. Friend mentioned, with investment in nuclear fusion and small modular reactors. Many businesses in the supply chain right across the east midlands will benefit from that significant investment and the jobs it will bring.