Who is Rachel Reeves – the primary feminine Chancellor and Beyoncé fan who turned down Goldman Sachs

Rachel Reeves will present Labour’s first Budget in nearly 15 years at the despatch box on October 30.

She will make history as the first female Chancellor to ever announce a Budget statement. It will be a seismic moment both for her and the party – but all eyes will be on the detail as voters and the markets brace for tax rises, spending commitments and cuts.

In a bombshell Budget, Ms Reeves is expected to announce billions for the NHS, tax increases for businesses as well as major changes to how debt is measured. The health service is likely to be a focus point but she will warn that tax hikes and borrowing increases may not be enough to undo “14 years of damage” to the NHS.

The Chancellor is expected to savage the former Tory government which left behind a £22billion black hole in the public finances as she delivers a tough Budget that has only been made more difficult due to a £22billion black hole the Conservatives left behind. During a political Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Ms Reeves warned ministers “the inheritance the Tories left meant there would have to be difficult decisions on spending, welfare and tax”.

But she vowed that there would be no return to austerity and that the Budget will deliver on that promise. She told them the Budget “would fix the foundations of the economy and deliver on the promise of change”.

Ahead of the Budget, the Mirror has pulled together a rundown on the life of our Chancellor Ms Reeves.

Political career

Ms Reeves wasn’t elected as a Member of Parliament until her third attempt at trying. Finally in 2010 she became MP for Leeds West, where she won a majority of just over 7,000. She served the constituency until boundary changes this year, when she was re-elected as an MP for the slightly altered Leeds West and Pudsey area with a majority of 12,392.

Just five months after being elected in 2010 Ms Reeves was promoted to Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions under then Labour leader Ed Miliband. The following year she became Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and in 2013 the Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions.

She became a backbencher during Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure and would later distance herself from his leadership. Under Keir Starmer she became Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, before being appointed Shadow Chancellor in 2021.

Ms Reeves has spoken about Alistair Darling, the last Labour Chancellor and who steered the country through recession in 2008, being a mentor to her when she first joined Parliament. Ms Reeves said last week that Mr Darling, who died last year aged 70, is the person who she would love to be able to pick up the phone to now. “I hope that he would be proud of what I’m doing as the next Labour Chancellor after him,” she said.

Banking career

Ms Reeves studied the prestigious degree of PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) at Oxford University, a course taken by the most recent Chancellor Jeremy Hunt and ex-PM Liz Truss. She also completed a masters in economics at the London School of Economics.

Despite having a photo of former PM Gordon Brown on her desk at university (apparently bought for her as a joke because he was a hero of hers), Ms Reeves wanted to get a “proper job” before considering any sort of career in politics. She pursued a career at Bank of England as an economist and later worked for the Bank of Scotland for more than three years.

Dame Sue Owen, who was her boss in Washington DC when Ms Reeves became the Bank’s first member of staff posted in the US capital, told the i newspaper this week: “I think she was quite conscious that there were people, even people like Gordon Brown, who’d only ever been in politics and that to have some credibility, she thought you needed to have done a real job first.”

At one point, she turned down a job at Goldman Sachs – a decision she says she does not regret but has joked: “I could have been a lot richer.”

Interests

One of Ms Reeves’ biggest and most well-known passions is chess. As a child, she had clear skills and talents in maths and was taught to play chess by her dad when she was seven. She went on to become under-14s British girls chess champion.

And she has gained skills that should come in handy this Budget, having told the BBC in a 2021 interview: “It’s about getting you to look ahead; to think strategically and not just tactically and to think about what your opponent’s next move is going to be as well as your own.”

As well as being a dedicated chess player, she is known to be a huge fan of Beyoncé. Ex Labour MP Michael Dugher, with whom Ms Reeves once shared an office in Parliament, told the i this week: “She is someone who is great company and great fun. She’s a bit more Beyoncé than Taylor Swift in her musical tastes. She also loves Ronnie Scott’s [jazz bar in London’s Soho]. She takes being a mum extremely seriously as well, so she’s just normal is what I would say.”

Family life

Ms Reeves was born in 1979 in southeast London to teacher parents Graham and Sally, who split up when she was seven. She went to a comprehensive school in Beckenham – Cator Park – with her sister Ellie and would spend her school holidays with their grandpa and grandma at their council maisonette in Kettering. The pair would go on to become the first sisters in history to sit around the Cabinet table – with Ellie also being a Labour MP and Cabinet minister.

Having been a Labour member since 1996, she has spoken of memories of her dad telling her to vote for the party when she was under the age of 10. She has also talked about her dad instilling a competitive spirit in her at a young age, with him never letting her win at chess. Ms Reeves is married to a senior civil servant, Nick Joicey. The pair have two children, whom they try to keep out of the spotlight.