Rachel Reeves MP: speeches 2025

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Speeches

11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I will address the shadow Chancellor’s specific points in a moment, but I want to start by acknowledging the progress he has made. After all, it has been quite a week for him. Last Thursday, he gave a speech saying that it will “take time” for his party to win back trust on the economy. Today he showed us how far he and his party have to go to achieve that. I want to give him some credit for last week’s analysis. He said that “the Conservative Party was seen to have failed”, and he is right. He said that the last Conservative Government “put at risk the very stability which Conservatives had always said must be carefully protected”, and I agree with him. [ Interruption. ]
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend will want to leave space on the leaflet to remind his constituents that he was lobbying for all those things so that he can take the thanks.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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This Government have provided £50 million in the spending review today, but we have also, I hope, done much more for Northern Ireland, providing a settlement that is a record since devolution, as well as significant investment in our defence sector. Northern Ireland has a proud history of producing for the UK’s defence needs.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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This Labour Government are giving real-terms increases in spending to local authorities every year. Compare that with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Administration from 2010 to 2015 that cut real spending by 2.9% every year. I am much happier to stand on my record as Chancellor than I would be to stand on what the Liberal Democrats did when they had a chance at being in government.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for raising those concerns about schools in the Forest of Dean and that school in particular. The state that schools are in after 14 years of Conservative Government is just not good enough. After what they did in the ’80s and ’90s, I did not think that even a Conservative Government would leave schools in this state. Many MPs will be able to talk about examples similar to my hon. Friend’s from their constituencies. I will ensure that the Department for Education and the Education Secretary hear about the specific case that he raises, because we want to improve the conditions that our young children are taught in.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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My hon. Friend has been a big advocate of reforms to the Green Book, and after setting up the consultation in January, we are pleased to be able to announce changes today to get more investment into places such as Gateshead and Whickham in the north of England. My hon. Friend is also a big champion for free school meals. I am really pleased that in the spending review 500,000 more children will get free school meals, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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The work that this Labour Government are doing will reduce inequality. We are giving a pay rise to millions of workers and creating defence jobs that pay a decent wage, and GB Energy will be headquartered in Scotland. Today I have been able to announce additional investment in the seafront in my hon. Friend’s constituency, which will bring economic benefits.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I do not think £445 million is not real money. That money will be invested in the Burns review stations. In addition, we are putting in £118 million to make the coal tips safe. Maybe the right hon. Lady is not that concerned about that, but I know that plenty of Welsh Labour MPs are.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I am really pleased that what we have set out today will lift 100,000 children out of poverty by providing free school meals to an additional 500,000 children. Real-terms funding for schools is increasing and real-terms funding per pupil is increasing to ensure that schools are able to provide the free school meals and the teaching that our children need.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I noted recently that the hon. Member said on a podcast that he wanted to cut Government spending by £300 billion, but that would mean getting rid of the whole of the NHS and the whole of the defence budget. We have increased spending by £300 billion to invest in our schools, our hospitals, our transport and our defence. I know that Reform is soft on defence, soft on workers’ rights and wants to privatise our NHS. I do not think those are the priorities of the British people.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for welcoming what we did with British Steel in Scunthorpe. I know that he has been a strong voice advocating for British Steel there, unlike some of our late arrivals in another party. As for Viking CCS, I was very pleased to announce that funding today, along with the Acorn investment in Aberdeenshire. The Energy Secretary will set out, in due course, the timing and the money available, but after our investment in CCS in Merseyside and Teesside at the end of last year, we are now in a position to provide a second tranche in Aberdeen, and also in the Humber.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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It is difficult to tell whether the hon. Gentleman supports the spending review and the additional money that we are putting into public services, or is against it. The settlement for the NHS means 3% real-terms growth a year, and for the police the figure is 2.3% a year. There is also an increase in per-pupil funding, as well as a real-terms increase in the schools budget, so I am not exactly sure what the hon. Gentleman’s complaint is.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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The Prime Minister was in Ipswich yesterday with my hon. Friend to visit a local college. He came back from that visit even more determined to crack on and build Sizewell nuclear power station in Suffolk because of the impact it will have not just on bringing down bills, but on bringing good jobs to Britain—good jobs through the supply chain—and on giving young people their hope and future back, knowing that they will have good jobs in the places they live, where they can make a career for themselves and bring prosperity to their families and communities.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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My right hon. Friend is right. We are backing innovation, skills and infrastructure, because we are backing British business. We are also cutting red tape, as we did yesterday, when we took the Planning and Infrastructure Bill through the House, making it easier to get things built in Britain again. As we make the investments, we want those jobs to come to Britain, including in the energy sector, whether it is investment in small modular reactors, Sizewell C, carbon capture and storage or floating offshore wind. We will set out the industrial strategy in the next couple of weeks, in which we will have more to say about energy costs for business.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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As my hon. Friend is aware, Bexleyheath and Crayford is a part of the country that I know well. It has huge potential for more homes and more investment. We have set a budget for the Department for Transport. We will set out the 10-year infrastructure plan next week to unlock further investment—both public and private—in housing and transport.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for that question. We will build more housing, which is what the investment in affordable homes grants will achieve, and that goes alongside transport investment—significant transport investment—in the west midlands and Birmingham. I was very pleased that my hon. Friend joined me in Birmingham last week, when we were able to celebrate the investment to extend the Metro out to east Birmingham and then to Solihull.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for the work that she and my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters) have done to make the moral case for financial services funds investing in defence, which is what keeps our country safe. As we uplift our defence spending, we want to get value for money. That is why we were so pleased that, in the deal that we did with the European Union, we secured a defence industrial partnership with the EU.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and he always passionately argues the case for Blackpool. Yes, there is deprivation in Blackpool, but there is also huge opportunity, which is why we are backing Blackpool with the investment we are putting in through the spending review.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for speaking powerfully about his experience and the experience of his constituents. After the 14 years and the broken promises of the Conservative party, our hospitals are not in a good enough condition. That is why we have set out the new hospital buildings programme, but it is also why we have put aside money in the spending review for improvements to hospital conditions in the meantime. I will make sure that the relevant Health Minister meets him to talk through what that means for people in Eastbourne.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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The allocation has now been made to the Department for Transport. We have not set out every project that that will fund, but I am sure the Transport Secretary will come to this House or the relevant Select Committee in due course.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I hope that my hon. Friend can already see the impact of our changed attitude and our changed perspective at the Treasury with our putting this record investment of £15.6 billion, which we announced last week, into eight mayoral combined authorities to better connect towns and cities. Because of the changes we have made, we have been able to put more money into the trans-Pennine route upgrade and the midlands hub, as well as significant investment in trains in Wales.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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The investment we are putting into Derby and Nottinghamshire is significant, with small modular reactors, investment in defence and investment in fusion, creating good jobs and paying decent wages right across the east midlands. I do not think that taxpayers’ money should be used to pay for asylum hotels, which is why we are reducing the cost of asylum accommodation by around £1 billion during the course of this Parliament and ending the use of asylum hotels.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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Blackpool will benefit from the affordable homes programme, free school meals for children and the roll-out of breakfast clubs. It also stands to benefit from the increase in the local transport grant—a fourfold increase compared with the plans we inherited from the Conservatives.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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I thank the right hon. Gentleman and member of the Treasury Select Committee for his question. We have made the allocation to the Department of Health and Social Care—an annual uplift of £29 billion—and it will be up to the Secretary of State to allocate that money, but I will make sure that he has heard the right hon. Gentleman’s question and that he gets a proper reply to him.
11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source
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We as a Government were proud to be able to step in and save British Steel at Scunthorpe, and again I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, but it is not just Scunthorpe. There are also opportunities in Sheffield and Port Talbot, because as we build this infrastructure—whether it is trams and trains, nuclear power or submarines—we want to use steel made in Britain. That is a really exciting opportunity, and the investments we are making in small modular reactors and fusion in Nottinghamshire and Derby create great opportunities for jobs. That is why we are also making a record investment in skills through the spending review, so that young people in North East Derbyshire and beyond can get access to the jobs that are being created.

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