Rachel Reeves MP: speeches

Speeches

• 8 Apr 2025 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  The Chief Secretary to the Treasury is working closely in a constructive way to bring together clusters of colleagues to discuss some of the pressing issues that span Departments and that no one Department can address on its own, whether that is reform of special educational needs and disabilities provision for early years, or tackling issues around homelessness and the cost of temporary accommodation. We are working cross-Government to address some of those cross-cutting issues.

• 8 Apr 2025 · Economic Growth · Hansard source

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  Impressive. We will be considering all such schemes as part of the spending review, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to go further and faster to grow our economy. That is why we are spending £113 billion more on capital investment in this Parliament, compared to the plans that we inherited, which means that we can upgrade more roads, rail lines and energy infrastructure, and build the 1.5 million homes our country needs too.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I was pleased to note in my statement that Thanet has already come forward with plans to build affordable housing under the affordable housing plan, for which I set out more money. Opposition parties that abstain or vote against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill are voting against homes for our constituents and jobs for our young people. On the Government side of the House, we back the builders, not the blockers. We back opportunities for young people and housing for our constituents. It is a shame that those parties do not do the same.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  At the Budget last autumn, we increased taxes by £40 billion without asking working people to pay more. We did that by abolishing the non-dom tax status, increasing the rates of capital gains tax, tightening the rules around inheritance tax and, yes, by asking businesses to pay more as well. We have already raised taxes to put more money into our health service, reduce NHS waiting lists and provide free breakfast clubs at primary schools. Today’s spring statement shows that we can grow the size of our economy through planning reforms and therefore ensure more money for our public services. The Government’s No. 1 priority is growth, so I am so pleased that the OBR has said that by the end of this Parliament the economy will be bigger than that we inherited it from the Conservatives.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The OBR has not taken into account any of the package of measures to get people back into work or looked at any behavioural effects of people making that switch into work. It said in that document that it will spend the summer looking at the entirety of the package, including the efforts we are making with a huge package to get people back into work. I am confident that that personalised, targeted support will get more people into work and lift them out of poverty, so that they can support their families and so that the economy can benefit from their contribution.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  Today, as part of the transformation fund, we have set aside £150 million next year for redundancy costs for a voluntary exit settlement, which shows how serious we are about reducing the size of the civil service, after it increased to record levels under the Conservative party.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Gentleman will know, our Prime Minister and President Trump discussed these issues when our Prime Minister was at the White House recently. We continue to work on those plans. The most important thing is that we protect our national security and can continue to operate out of that important base.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The key point in what the right hon. Gentleman says is that cumulative growth is lower from 2023 to the end of the forecast. Of course, this Government did not come into power in 2023; we came into power in July 2024. The OBR numbers show that the economy is bigger because of the changes we have made—it is just a difference in the dates. I look forward to coming to the Treasury Committee next week, and I am sure I will take more questions from the right hon. Gentleman then.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  With specific reference to agricultural property relief, people will not pay extra tax unless they have a farm worth around £3 million. More than two thirds of farms are not affected at all by the changes in that relief. For those who do pay the tax, it is at half the rate that anybody else pays, and they can pay it, interest-free, over a period of 10 years. That is very different from the inheritance tax bills that anybody else pays.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I know that the shadow Chancellor has not been in his role for very long, but at least he is not misquoting Shakespeare today. If this was a Budget, it would be the Leader of the Opposition responding. I am glad that she is still in her place, but I know she will want to get back to her office for a lunchtime steak soon. The right hon. Gentleman talks about Budgets. Let me remind the Conservative party that the only emergency Budget we have seen in recent years was in response to their party’s disastrous mini-Budget—a mini-Budget that crashed the economy, sent mortgage bills spiralling and left a £22 billion black hole in our nation’s finances. Conservative Members may have forgotten about the damage that they did to our country, but the British people never will. As always, the shadow Chancellor talked a lot, but he did not offer a single alternative. He says he opposes our tax rises, but he cannot tell us whether he would cut the NHS to reverse them. He says he wants economic growth, but Conservative Members abstained on the very planning reforms that the OBR has said will kick-start growth. Mr Speaker, you do not change the country by abstaining or by sitting on the fence; you change the country by leading and by taking action, and that is what this Government are doing. The shadow Chancellor says he wants businesses to trade, but he does not want us to talk to the second largest economy in the world or, indeed, our biggest trading partners in the European Union. He simply is not serious. Four months into the job, and he has got no clue. The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about growth, but he does not say anything about the fact that the OBR has upgraded growth next year and every single year after. He talks about pensioners, but he forgets that it is his party’s policy to scrap the triple lock, which we are protecting and which will mean the state pension rising next month by over £400. He talks about wages, but he forgets the fact that we are boosting wages by boosting the national living wage from next month. The shadow Chancellor says nothing about living standards or this morning’s fall in inflation, because the last Parliament was the worst on record, and the OBR has today revised up its forecast for family finances. Working people are always better off with Labour. The right hon. Gentleman is learning something, because at least this time he has asked a couple of questions, so let me respond to them. He asked what the markets should make of this. What the markets should see is that, when I have been tested with a deterioration in the headroom, we have restored that headroom in full. That is one of the choices that I made. He says that it is a sliver of a headroom. Well, it is 50% more headroom than I inherited from the Conservative party. When I was left with a sliver of headroom, I rebuilt it after the last Government eroded it. That is the difference that we have made. While they left the public finances and the public services in a mess, we wiped the slate clean, which means that we have the flexibility now to increase defence spending, as the leader of the Labour party has done. The Conservatives had 14 years to increase defence spending, and now they lately come to the party. The shadow Chancellor mentions welfare reform and his time at the Department for Work and Pensions. What a legacy: one in eight young people not in education, employment or training, and 1,000 people a day going on to personal independence payments. The OBR says today that welfare spending as a share of GDP will now start falling—a far cry from what we had under the Conservative party. The shadow Chancellor speaks about employment. The OBR says that employment will increase, that wages will increase and that living standards will increase. What a change, after 14 years of the Conservative party. The world is changing, and no one can be in any doubt about it, but the Conservative party is stuck in the past—divided, out of touch and carping from the sidelines. Conservative Members have no plan: no plan to kick-start growth, no plan to fix our public services and no plan to keep our country safe. The only plan for change they are working on is a plan to change their party leader, and we cannot blame them for that. If the Opposition have no plan, let me remind them about ours. The minimum wage up, real wages up, house building up, NHS investment up, investment in our schools up, investment in our roads up, defence spending up—and every single one of those policies is opposed by the party opposite. They are opposed by the Conservatives, opposed by Reform, opposed by the SNP, opposed by the Liberal Democrats and opposed by the Greens. It is the anti-growth coalition in action. They are the blockers. We are the builders—securing Britain’s future, protecting working people and delivering change.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks passionately about expanding opportunities for her constituents in Barking. The changes to the apprenticeship levy and the growth and skills levy are about ensuring that more people, including her constituents, can access apprenticeship courses and foundation courses. Just this weekend, we were able to announce an additional 60,000 places on construction courses to help people get jobs that pay a decent wage and offer security. That is what the Government are all about.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I am sure that the relevant Health Minister will be willing to meet with the hon. Lady to talk about that. Because of the investment that we put into our national health service at the Budget last year—more than £20 billion of additional funding—we are able to start to rebuild our NHS and reduce waiting lists. Indeed, we have done that now for five months in a row.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I will not make any apologies for putting more money in defence. This Labour Government take the defence of our country seriously, and so we should. We are the party that created NATO, and the leadership of the Labour party today will always defend our country.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  It is really difficult to understand what the Conservative party want. Do they want to reduce the cost of admin and bureaucracy, or do they want to carry on with everything the way it was? We want to change things. That is why the transformation fund that I set out today includes £150 million for a voluntary exit scheme. We want more money on the frontline, not in the back office in a bloated bureaucracy that was left by the Conservatives.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. One of the reasons we have put an additional £13 billion into capital spending over the forecast period is to invest in the infrastructure that our country needs, including transport infrastructure, which I know my hon. Friend, as Chair of the Transport Committee, has a keen interest in. She is absolutely right: we do need to look more at how we can leverage in private sector funding for a whole range of projects, including the lower Thames crossing.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  At the Budget, we put record investment into our farming sector, after being left plans by the previous Government that did not even involve their using all their farming budget. We are determined to give farmers the support that they need.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks about a constituent who is in work. I am sure that she and others will welcome the work that Charlie Mayfield has done on ensuring that people with sickness and disability can stay in work. We know that the best place for people is in work—for both their physical and mental health—and that too often when people drop out of the labour market they really struggle to get back into it. Alongside the targeted support to get people back into work, we are determined to work with businesses and ensure that more people with sickness and disability can stay in work, contributing to their family finances and to the wider economy.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks powerfully on behalf of his constituents in Loughborough. The 1.5 million additional homes the Government are building will ensure that families in Loughborough have a chance of getting on the housing ladder and that young people in Loughborough will have the opportunities to help build those homes. That is the difference we are making: more jobs, paying decent wages, and more homes for our families.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. People in North East Derbyshire will benefit from the additional homes, whether they are able to buy those homes, rent those homes or, indeed, build those homes, as we expand the number of construction apprenticeships and construct 10 new technical excellence colleges. They will also benefit from the increases in real household disposable income. When the economy grows, we want to have more money in people’s pockets and that is what the OBR today confirms will happen.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  Last year in the Budget, we provided the biggest ever settlement for the Welsh Government, yet Plaid voted against that. I do not understand why the hon. Member does not want money to go to Wales and to her constituents.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  As a result of the triple lock, which we have been able to protect, next month the basic state pension will increase by more than £400. By the end of this Parliament, the triple lock, which the shadow Chancellor opposes, will cost an additional £31 billion. That is the protection that we are giving to pensioners, as well as record investment in our NHS, which older people use with greater frequency than anyone else.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Government want people in Bishop Auckland and constituents in all parts of our country to feel the benefits of growth through good jobs paying decent wages. That is why we are increasing the national living wage; making work pay; and backing the builders—not the blockers—who are creating new jobs, new homes for families, new transport infrastructure and new energy infrastructure. The OBR has said today that, compared with the plans we inherited, real household disposable income per person is set to rise by £500 by the end of this Parliament. That shows the difference that the Government are making.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. It is just a shame that there are no SNP members in the Chamber—although there are so few of them—to hear what he said. Perhaps my hon. Friend would write to the SNP and ask them why they refuse to back the defence sector in the United Kingdom and specifically in Scotland.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I was pleased to mention my hon. Friend’s constituency in my statement. As the home of the British Army, on behalf of this Government, we thank the people of Aldershot and Farnborough for the service that they give our country every single day. My hon. Friend is right to mention the importance of companies in the defence sector, whether big or small, being able to access finance. That has never been more important than it is today, when the threats posed by Putin continue to grow. I therefore urge everyone in financial services to do their part to make sure that our fantastic defence start-ups have the money that they need to grow and help defend our country and our values.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  The world has changed, and we can see that all around us, which is why our defence is more important than other things. That is why it is so astonishing that the SNP continues to oppose the nuclear deterrent.