Britain would be WORSE off if I hadn’t hiked taxes, claims Rachel Reeves as she says: ‘I’m in it for the long haul’
RACHEL Reeves insists the UK would be worse off if she hadn’t hiked taxes – as she vows to be in the job for the long haul.
The Chancellor has hit back at calls for her head claiming she’s happy to be the ‘Iron Chancellor’ amid recent market turmoil.
She says borrowing costs would have gone “through the roof” if she hadn’t acted at the Budget.
But she dismissed recent upheaval in the City should be compared to Liz Truss’s mini-Budget back in 2022 when the value of the pound plunged.
Ms Reeves, speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, said: “Every decision I make has consequences, but so does the counterfactual.
“If I had made the decision not to address those very real pressures, then this is the consequence: borrowing costs would have gone through the roof.
“Borrowing costs not just for Government but for families and businesses, like it did when Liz Truss was prime minister.”
Her comments come as inflation unexpectedly this week and there was a return to growth but it was lower than expected at 0.1 per cent.
Despite some claims that Sir Keir Starmer was considering removing his Chancellor, Ms Reeves says she doesn’t take the criticism to heart.
She said: “Some people don’t want me to succeed.
“Some people don’t want this Government to succeed. That’s fair enough. That’s the prerogative, but I’m not going to let them get me down.
“I’m not going to let them stop me from doing what this Government has got a mandate to do, and that is to grow the economy, to make working people better off.”
Downing Street said this week that she would be at the Treasury for the rest of this Parliament – up to 2029 – after Sir Keir earlier dodged a question on the subject.
The PM did say she had his “full confidence”.
The Treasury has also been hit this week after City Minister Tulip Siddiq quit over links to her aunt and ousted Bangladesh leader.