Can Chancellor Rachel Reeves repair the financial system? Take our ballot and have your say
New Chancellor Rachel Reeves has vowed to capitalise on chasing the blues away from the UK – by pledging to fix the economy so families in every corner of the country are better off.
Ms Reeves says she’ll judge her time in office a success if “at the end of it there are working-class kids from ordinary backgrounds living richer lives, their horizons expanded, and their potential realised”.
And she certainly has her work cut out for her as she sifts through the smoking debris left by the Tories. In her first speech as chief finance minister, she warned a gargantuan £58billion more could have been pumped into public services such as the NHS and schools last year if the Conservatives had achieved growth.
Setting out her plan to get Britain booming, the Labour minister said there is “no time to waste”, and pledged to take the “difficult decisions to deliver growth” as she reverses “the legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility”.
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Ms Reeves is on a mission to kickstart the economy after years of stagnation under the Conservatives. After she was appointed by Keir Starmer on Friday, she said it was the “honour of my life” to be put in charge of the nation’s finances. She is the first woman in history to hold the job.
In a speech to business leaders in London she said: “Last week, the British people voted for change … and I have begun the work necessary to deliver on that mandate. Our manifesto was clear: ‘Sustained economic growth is the only route to improving the prosperity of our country and the living standards of working people’.
“Where governments have been unwilling to take the difficult decisions to deliver growth – or have waited too long to act – I will deliver. It is now a national mission. There is no time to waste.”
Ms Reeves will pledge to “fix the foundations of our economy, so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off”. She will add: “We face the legacy of 14 years of chaos and economic irresponsibility. New Treasury analysis I requested over the weekend exposed the opportunities lost from this failure.
“Had the UK economy grown at the average rate of OECD economies since 2010, it would have been over £140billion larger. This could have brought in an additional £58 billion in tax revenues last year alone to sustain our public services. It falls to this new Government to fix the foundations.”
Heading up her to-do list is to sort out the planning system so the country can get building.
