Who’s Rachel Reeves?

Rachel Reeves has had a bumpy first few months in authorities.

Her tax-hiking Finances prompted criticism from companies and farmers, and regardless of Labour placing a pledge to spice up the economic system on the centre of its plans, development has been sluggish.

Now the chancellor is going through questions on whether or not she exaggerated her expertise on her on-line CV and her use of bills whereas working within the banking sector earlier than she grew to become an MP.

Reeves was born in south-east London in 1979, simply months earlier than Margaret Thatcher grew to become prime minister at a time of immense social and financial change.

She has beforehand instructed the BBC her mom would tick off gadgets on a financial institution assertion in opposition to receipts whereas sitting on the kitchen desk: “We weren’t poor, however we did not have cash to waste.”

Her dad and mom separated when she was at major faculty, and he or she and youthful sister Ellie, additionally a Labour MP, had been shuttled between separate houses.

In the course of the faculty holidays, the sisters would spend time with their grandparents within the Northamptonshire city of Kettering.

They might be taken to do the rounds of family members’ homes, who would give them a 20p or 50p piece every. On the finish of their week, they had been taken to the native toy store to decide on their goodies. Whereas Ellie would spend all her money, the younger Rachel would permit herself a smaller deal with and save a lot of the cash.

Many years later, Chancellor Reeves would say that form of restraint defines her, and he or she has very a lot modelled herself on Gordon Brown’s “prudence” within the lead-up to Labour’s 1997 election win.

Reeves performed chess from an early age, along with her father educating her the important thing strikes. She grew to become a nationwide under-14 champion, and would “quietly thrash” any boys who would possibly assume they had been in for a simple sport, in accordance with Ellie.

She has credited chess with educating her “to assume forward, to plan a method”.

A eager flute participant, she took her music GCSE a 12 months early at Beckenham’s Cator Park College for Women, a complete, and would go on to realize 4 A grades at A-level.

Seeing the extent of cuts at her faculty, the place the library had been become a classroom and the sixth kind consisted of “two pre-fab huts within the playground”, she has stated she was politicised by her personal expertise of public companies. On the age of 16, she joined the Labour Occasion.

She went on to review Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford College. As a pupil, she would host others earlier than school discos, blasting out Future’s Youngster songs and dressing up in her room.

Regardless of her critical manner, colleagues and buddies have instructed the Labour MP’s public persona doesn’t mirror her human aspect, together with a loud snigger and a deep love of Beyoncé tracks.

Age: 46

Hometown: Lewisham, south-east London

Schooling: New Faculty, Oxford and the London College of Economics

Household: Married to Nicholas Joicey, a senior civil servant and former speechwriter to Gordon Brown throughout his time as chancellor. They’ve two youngsters. Her sister is Labour Occasion chair Ellie Reeves.

Parliamentary constituency: Leeds West and Pudsey

After graduating, Reeves took on a task as an economist on the Financial institution of England.

She labored on the central financial institution’s Japan desk, wanting on the nation’s makes an attempt to return out of stagnation within the Nineties.

Throughout a secondment to the UK embassy in Washington, she met her future husband Nicholas Joicey, who had hung out as a movie critic for newspapers and as a speechwriter to then-Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Earlier than changing into MP for Leeds West in 2010, Reeves moved to town and hung out working there for the retail arm of Halifax Financial institution of Scotland.

Her profession at HBOS has now come underneath scrutiny, after the BBC revealed Reeves and two colleagues had been the topic of an bills probe whereas she was a senior supervisor on the financial institution.

The preliminary stage of the HBOS investigation discovered {that a} whistleblower’s grievance was substantiated, and the three staff appeared to have damaged the principles, in accordance with a senior supply with direct data of the probe.

The BBC has not been in a position to set up what the ultimate final result of the investigation was and it may not have concluded.

A spokesman for Reeves stated the chancellor had no data of the investigation, all the time complied with bills guidelines and left the financial institution on good phrases.

Reeves has additionally confronted questions in regards to the accuracy of her on-line CV, which the BBC discovered exaggerated the size of time she labored on the Financial institution of England.

A spokesman for Reeves confirmed that dates on her LinkedIn had been inaccurate and blamed an administrative error by the workforce.

Final 12 months, her LinkedIn profile was additionally modified to explain her function at HBOS as “Retail Banking”.

It had beforehand claimed she labored as an economist on the financial institution, however she as a substitute held a administration function within the financial institution’s buyer relations division, which handled complaints.

Getting into Parliament in 2010, an early mentor on financial coverage was Alistair Darling – the final Labour chancellor, throughout the monetary disaster.

She shortly rose up the get together’s ranks, shadowing roles on the Treasury, Work and Pensions, and the Cupboard Workplace.

All through Jeremy Corbyn’s 4 and a half years as Labour chief, she remained on the backbenches as a result of she felt she couldn’t endorse his insurance policies. Referred to as a “Crimson Tory” by some within the get together, she described this as a “very disagreeable interval” in an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson.

A former editor of the BBC’s Newsnight programme was pressured to difficulty a written apology to Reeves after calling her “boring loud night breathing” on social media in a publish that was meant to be a non-public message.

Whereas she stated the incident was “deeply humiliating”, her key goal after Sir Keir Starmer appointed her shadow chancellor was to painting Labour as a gentle, pro-business hand on the economic system.

In October 2023, she admitted she “ought to have performed higher” after it emerged some passages in her e book, The Girls Who Made Fashionable Economics, had been lifted from different sources with out acknowledgment.

She instructed the BBC some sentences “weren’t correctly referenced” and this might be corrected in future reprints.

Final July, Reeves grew to become the nation’s first feminine chancellor and shortly confronted what she described as “robust decisions”.

She claimed a “black gap” within the nation’s funds meant winter gasoline funds must be lower for thousands and thousands of pensioners and Nationwide Insurance coverage hiked for employers.

Regardless of Labour’s makes an attempt to win over companies throughout the election marketing campaign, many had been upset they bore the brunt of the £40bn in tax rises introduced in her first Finances.

Earlier than successful energy, Reeves promised she would govern with “iron self-discipline” and produce stability to the general public funds, resulting in comparisons with Conservative “Iron Chancellor” Margaret Thatcher.

Now Reeves is underneath strain to ship the financial development promised by her get together, whereas additionally guaranteeing individuals really feel higher off.