\n<\/p>\n
Rachel Reeves has said it is impossible for her to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget and insisted she never thought about quitting despite a turbulent week for her and the government.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Guardian, the chancellor said \u201cthere are costs\u201d to the watering down of the welfare bill and acknowledged it had been a \u201cdamaging\u201d week for Downing Street.<\/p>\n
The chancellor\u2019s tears in the Commons on Wednesday spooked the financial markets and raised questions about her future in the job, but No 10 quickly weighed in behind her, saying she and the prime minister were in lockstep.<\/p>\n
Reeves said she had never considered resigning her position, despite being the focus of some Labour backbench anger over her handling of the economy, saying: \u201cI didn\u2019t work that hard to then quit.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she regretted going into prime minister\u2019s questions in tears after a \u201ctough day in the office\u201d but hoped that people \u201ccould relate\u201d to her distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a personal matter but it was in the glare of the camera. And that\u2019s unfortunate, but I think people have seen that I\u2019m back in business and back out there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to prime minister\u2019s questions because I thought that was the right thing to do, because that\u2019s where I always am at lunchtime on a Wednesday. You know, in retrospect, I probably wished I hadn\u2019t gone in \u2026 [on] a tough day in the office. But, you know, it is what it is. But I think most people can relate to that \u2013 that they\u2019ve had tough days.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her challenging moment in parliament came in the same week that a backbench rebellion forced the government to drop key welfare cuts, which leaves Reeves with a \u00a35bn black hole to fill in the country\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been damaging,\u201d she admitted. \u201cI\u2019m not going to deny that, but I think where we are now, with a review led by Stephen Timms [a work and pensions minister], who is obviously incredibly respected and has a huge amount of experience, that\u2019s the route we\u2019re taking now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the right thing to do. It is important that we listen in government, that we listen to our colleagues and listen to what groups outside are saying as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Timms is working with disability groups to reform the personal independent payments (Pip) system, which had been the target of government cuts until the huge backbench rebellion drove the government to drop them.<\/p>\n
Reeves said the government had learned lessons about bringing MPs and the country along with them in the run-up to what is widely expected to be a difficult budget this autumn ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we move into the budget for the autumn, I do want to bring people into those trade-offs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/span>\u2018We do need to make sure that we\u2019re telling a story, and a Labour story.\u2019<\/span> Photograph: Linda Nylind\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Asked whether she was prepared to rule out tax rises, she said: \u201cI\u2019m not going to, because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that. We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement. So we\u2019ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n While tax rises could be on the table, Reeves signalled that her fiscal rules would remain and that \u201cwe\u2019ll continue to keep that grip on the public finances\u201d. But she stressed the need to accompany this with a strong explanation of how the Treasury\u2019s choices fit with Labour values.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to apologise for making sure the numbers add up,\u201d she said. \u201cBut we do need to make sure that we\u2019re telling a story, and a Labour story. We did that well in the budget and the spending review, we increased taxes on the wealthiest and businesses. In the budget last year, I made it really clear that priorities in that budget were to protect working people, to invest in the NHS and to start rebuilding Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n Some within government and the Labour party have been pushing for either a reconsideration of the fiscal rules or rethinking the remit of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which produces two forecasts and rulings a year on whether the rules have been met.<\/p>\n Asked whether she would consider one forecast instead of two, Reeves said: \u201cWe are looking at how the OBR works, but I think it is really important to have those independent economic institutions, because if you start undermining those \u2026 and getting rid of the checks and balances on a government, I do think that is risky. But the International Monetary Fund have made some recommendations about how to deliver better fiscal policymaking. And obviously I take those seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n The IMF has suggested that while the OBR could still produce two forecasts, it could be possible to only have one annual assessment of whether the chancellor is hitting her fiscal rules. However, government sources suggested that any changes could be more along the lines of more regular exchange of information to reduce last-minute changes like those in the spring statement.<\/p>\n Reeves also spoke of her drive to reduce child poverty but she would not be drawn on whether she would lift the two-child benefit cap. Keir Starmer has said the government \u201cwill look at it\u201d but experts have warned it could be more difficult given the hole left by the U-turn on the welfare cuts.<\/p>\n The chancellor said she wanted to reduce child poverty but was \u201cnot wedded to any specific policy\u201d, adding: \u201cI think people can see how serious I am about making sure that all kids get a good start in life by what we did in the spending review just a few weeks ago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rachel Reeves has said it is impossible for her to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget and insisted she never thought about quitting despite a turbulent week for her and the government. In an interview with the Guardian, the chancellor said \u201cthere are costs\u201d to the watering down of the welfare bill and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[2819,2820,2655,2656,345,1156,101,365],"class_list":{"0":"post-10060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics","8":"tag-autumn","9":"tag-damaging","10":"tag-rachel","11":"tag-reeves","12":"tag-rises","13":"tag-rule","14":"tag-tax","15":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}