Rachel Reeves MP: speeches

Speeches

• 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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  The hon. Lady started that question wanting to be a builder, and ended it by being a blocker. I suppose that is not surprising, given that the Liberal Democrats voted against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill yesterday, while we Labour Members supported it, because we want to get Britain building and to create prosperity and wealth in all our communities. In today’s spending review, we have provided an integrated settlement for the Mayor of London and a multi-year settlement for Transport for London. We have also supported expansion at City airport, and we have an in-principle commitment to expansion, and a second runway, at Gatwick. This Government are backing London, but most importantly, we are a Government for the whole country. That is why we have announced significant investments across the UK today, which are much needed.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  This will be a scheme operated from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. We announced some of the neighbourhoods that will benefit from that investment today. This is not something that neighbourhoods will have to bid for; this will go to the communities that need it most. The Deputy Prime Minister will be setting out in due course all the 350 neighbourhoods that will benefit from this investment.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I think the whole House would pay tribute to the people of Portsmouth and their commitment to our country’s defence. On affordable housing, through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill and the planning reforms we have already announced, we are enabling the building of these homes. Through the £39 billon announced today, we are putting in money so that we can build social and affordable homes. It is disappointing that the Liberal Democrats do not back our planning and infrastructure reforms, because unless everyone backs those, it will be very hard to get Britain building again and to build the 1.5 million homes that people in Portsmouth and the rest of our country desperately need.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I appreciate my hon. Friend’s welcoming of the breakfast clubs, free school meals and the capping of school uniform costs, which will help families living in poverty. The free school meals will, as she knows, lift 100,000 children out of poverty. She mentions the affordable homes grant, which will have its biggest ever increase. We have set that budget for 10 years to give certainty to the sector, so that it understands what is available. In addition, we have set out some social rent changes to give certainty to the sector to invest for the future.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  The changes we have made to the planning system and the changes we are making through the Planning and Infrastructure Bill provide the opportunity to build. Today, we have backed those opportunities with money through the affordable homes grant to ensure that a good proportion of social and affordable housing is included in that, for all the reasons that hon. Members have mentioned. On the particular issue of housing around stations, there is huge potential there. The infrastructure is there—we want to have the housing there, too.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  Last week, we set out additional money for the Mayor of the West of England, and today we have announced a fourfold increase in local transport funding, which will be available for communities across the country. The hon. Member says that he wants to grow the economy—it is disappointing that the Liberal Democrats voted against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill yesterday, which will do exactly that.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend has spoken to me powerfully on many occasions about how much Westminster city council has to spend on temporary accommodation, which is why the investment in affordable homes grants is so important—and not just for London, but for the whole country—but there are specific issues. As I said in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall and Camberwell Green (Florence Eshalomi), there are particular challenges in London because of the extraordinarily high house prices and rents. This investment in affordable and social housing can have a big impact in London. Combined with the additional money for free school meals, the roll-out of breakfast clubs and the increase in the national living wage, this is a spending review to benefit people across the whole country, including in Westminster and London.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question. It is good to see the Minister in his place to hear it, too. It is really important that, as we invest in the social and affordable housing needed both in our capital city and in the whole country, we are investing in the right places. That housing must have the potential not only to provide the homes that people need, but to reduce that pressure on local authority and national budgets, which, so often, are picking up the costs of previous Governments who failed to invest in social and affordable homes.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for her campaigning on housing and homelessness, which is a big challenge in many of our constituencies, including hers in Vauxhall and Camberwell Green. We want to work closely with local councils and the Mayor of London to build the affordable homes that we desperately need in the capital city, where house prices and rents are still far too high for so many families. I look forward to working with my hon. Friend on just that.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend speaks powerfully about the desperate need for more social and affordable homes in all our communities, including those in Bolton. That multi-year commitment and £39 billion of investment will help us to build the social and affordable homes that our country desperately needs, and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government will work with local authorities to bring forward those plans and get Britain building the homes that we need.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question and the way in which he has put it. I was pleased to be able to announce the settlement for Northern Ireland in today’s spending review, but also money through the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. He mentions Casement Park, and we have put £50 million in through this spending review. I will arrange for the right hon. Gentleman to meet either the Northern Ireland Secretary or a Minister from my Department to talk through what he wants to see.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  I know that there is great need for affordable homes in Gravesham. With today’s spending review, as well as the planning reforms we have introduced and continue to introduce—opposed, I think, by all the Opposition parties—we can get those homes built for families in Gravesham.

• 11 Jun 2025 · Spending Review 2025 · Hansard source

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  It sounds like it is a pretty good day to be an MP in Burton. We are pleased to be able to make those investments in the midlands rail hub and in nuclear technology. There will also be additional housing investment that will go into Burton and other places across the country. The allocation has been made to the Department for Transport, and the Secretary of State will set out her plans in due course. We will also be setting out more detail in the 10-year national infrastructure plan next week.

• 20 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I very much agree, but what is truly extraordinary is that the Conservatives, Reform and the Scottish National party have voted against or abstained on the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, and they do not support any of the trade deals that we have secured to support working people in our country.

• 8 Apr 2025 · New Homes: Affordability · Hansard source

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  The key thing we need to do is build the homes our country desperately needs. That is why I put £600 million of investment into creating 60,000 additional places for people to learn the construction skills we need, and into good jobs, paying decent wages and building the homes we need. That is also why we are reforming the planning system, so that we can actually get those homes built. We are backing the builders, not the blockers, which is what the Conservatives did.

• 8 Apr 2025 · New Homes: Affordability · Hansard source

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  The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have set out our ambitions to build 1.5 million homes during this Parliament as part of our plan for change. At the spring statement I announced steps towards that ambition, with an additional £2 billion investment in social and affordable housing next year as a down payment on further investment at the spending review in June.

• 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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  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 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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  The best thing that we can do for our constituents is build the homes that they desperately need. I have no understanding of why Green party Members voted against the Planning and Infrastructure Bill this week. What do they have against families getting homes and young people getting jobs?

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for that question, and I do indeed look forward to attending the Treasury Committee next week. I was pleased to serve on the Treasury Committee in the past, and it is a pleasure to give evidence to it. We will set out in the spending review—my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will set out in the spending review—the allocation of the additional capital money. However, I was able to announce today the £2.2 billion for defence from next year, as well as the £2 billion as a downpayment to build the affordable and social housing that we need. Those are two examples of the priorities of this Government to get Britain building and to secure our national security.

• 26 Mar 2025 · Spring Statement · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right that her constituents—all our constituents—depend on economic stability. It ensures that they know how much they will pay on their rent and mortgages; it ensures that they are not caught out, when they go to the shops, by prices constantly rising. That is why, as a Government, we have said that the No. 1 thing we need to achieve in order to grow our economy is economic stability, which is why I am so pleased that the Bank of England has been able to cut interest rates three times since the general election and the OBR has forecast that inflation will fall rapidly to 2.1% next year, and then 2% in the years after that.