‘I have more to do’: Reeves campaigns for Chancellor role under Burnham
Rachel Reeves said she has “more to do” as Chancellor as she pitched staying in her job to business leaders despite speculation she will be dumped from the role by Andy Burnham.
Reeves said she had brought “stability” to the UK economy and added she was “proud” of her record on inflation and growth.
The current Chancellor said Burnham, who returned to parliament on Monday, would “become Prime Minister” and claimed she had a close relationship with him through their work in developing transport networks across the North.
“I backed Andy in 2015 as leader of our party, and I’ve known him for more than a decade and a half since I became a Member of Parliament in 2010. So we’ve worked closely together but particularly worked closely together in the last two years,” she told the British Chambers of Commerce conference.
“I’ve consistently beaten the forecasts for the UK since I became Chancellor.”
She also said she backed her choices to raise taxes as the “counterfactual would be the government that lost control of the public finances”.
She told business audiences during a Q&A session: “The economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the first quarter – six times four is 2.4 per cent if you continued that for a year, so I mean that would be an exemplary level of growth for an economy. Are we going to maintain that? No, because of the conflict in the Middle East, it’s not a conflict that we started, it’s not a conflict we entered. I think I’ve been pretty clear on and off of that board about my views of that conflict.”
Reeves: ‘Stick to what I’m doing’
Reeves said she hoped any prospective Chancellor “sticks to what I’m doing” in a defiant call for Labour to maintain her fiscal rules. She claimed Burnham had “been really explicit that he backs those fiscal rules” on balancing day-to-day spending with taxes in three years and reducing net financial liabilities.
When asked about the Defence Investment Plan, which is set to be Starmer’s last major act as Prime Minister given it will be published before the Nato summit on 9 July, Reeves said there was “flexibility” within the fiscal rules to borrow for capital investment on tanks and armoury.
Her push to stay on has come as media reports have suggested Wes Streeting, Ed Miliband and Shabana Mahmood are the frontrunners for the Chancellor job under Burnham’s expected premiership.
On Wednesday night, it was reported that Reeves’ aides had asked business leaders to lobby Burnham to keep her in the Treasury. One source told Politico they would not follow through on the demand.
When Starmer delivered his resignation speech on Monday, a number of ministers and advisers lined up on Downing Street to support him although Reeves was absent.
She later appeared in Westminster for a selfie opportunity with Burnham.
Reeves said she was “backing Andy” yet would not “pre-empt the decisions that the new Prime Minister will make”.
During the BCC conference, when Reeves was asked about whether she had any advice for any future Chancellor, she stuttered and then said: “I’m not sure if anyone wants my advice.”