Reeves ‘absolutely confident’ she will be Chancellor at next election

Rachel Reeves has said she is confident she will be Chancellor at the next election despite accusations that she misled voters.

The Chancellor has been forced to defend herself against claims she was not clear about the state of public finances in the run-up to the Budget.

While attending the Wales Investment Summit in Newport, Ms Reeves said she was “proud” of her Budget and dismissed doubts about her future as Chancellor.

Asked how confident she was that she would still be Chancellor by the next election, she told the Press Association: “I’m absolutely confident.

“I set out in a speech a couple of weeks before the Budget that the ambition for the Budget was to cut NHS waiting lists, cut the cost of living, and cut the debt and the deficit.

“We’ve achieved all of those things.

“We’ve increased the headroom and the idea that some people are suggesting that we had £4 billion to play with… Well, actually, what happened was the headroom was revised down by the OBR, was more than halved, but I wanted to double that headroom because that gives us the best shot of withstanding all of the volatility that we’re seeing in the global economy at the moment.

“So I’m proud of my Budget and its choices.”

Energy bills

The Chancellor added: “It took £150 off people’s energy bills, lifted 500,000 kids out of poverty, protected spending on the NHS to bring down waiting lists, and also added that fiscal economic resilience for our economy.

“And anyone that thinks that you can run an economy with a headroom of £4 billion, well, I think, as a country, we’re very lucky that those people are not the chancellor.”

Ms Reeves is accused of talking up the scale of the fiscal challenge in the run-up to last week’s Budget, in which she announced £26 billion worth of tax rises.

She said an Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecast showing a £4.2 billion surplus against her borrowing rules did not take into account the welfare reform U-turn or the abolition of the two-child benefit cap.

Members of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s top team have reportedly accused him and Ms Reeves of misleading the Cabinet, with The Times quoting an unnamed minister as describing the handling of the Budget as “a disaster from start to finish”.

“At no point were the Cabinet told about the reality of the OBR forecasts,” they told the newspaper.

Briefed

Speaking to BBC Wales at the Wales Investment Summit, the Chancellor was asked why she was not honest with her Cabinet colleagues.

She said: “You would never expect the Prime Minister and Chancellor to go through all the detailed numbers.

“The Cabinet are briefed on the morning of the Budget on the Budget numbers.

“Of course, we go through things that affect individual government departments, but the whole information of the Budget is not supposed to be provided until the Chancellor delivers the Budget.

“Obviously, this time, it was leaked early, but not by the Treasury.”