Speeches by Reeves.

“Obviously, I regularly talk to businesses, including the business representative bodies. The Federation of Small Businesses welcomed the lifting of the threshold—”

“It is not just about what they say to me. The Federation of Small Businesses have said that we accepted one of their recommendations that they had been recommending to Government for some time, which is to increase the threshold at which small businesses pay national insurance. They welcome the fact that we listened to…”

“Obviously, we look at all the labour market data. At the moment, it is showing that despite some of the concerns that have been raised, wages are rising at around twice the rate of inflation. Many people said that wages would fall or wage growth would collapse because of the changes to national insurance. Actually, for…”

“No, at quite a high level compared to the historical averages, which, again, gives confidence that businesses do want to carry on hiring. In fact, it is about redoubling our efforts to ensure that those people who are not in work today are supported to get back to work. Vacancies, at about 700,000 or 800,000, are at a …”

“I spoke to my opposite number, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, in his first week in office. I have joined the G7 meetings since then, and I spoke to him again on Monday this week. The Business and Trade Secretary, Jonny Reynolds, is meeting regularly with his opposite number and the US trade representative. Those tal…”

“There were a lot of questions to—”

“I said in the Budget last year that it was a once-in-a-Parliament Budget to wipe the slate clean after the economic mismanagement of the previous Administration. We made a number of difficult decisions around taxation. We increased taxes on the wealthiest in our country, and we also increased, as we have discussed, tax…”

“I am not going to write another four years’ worth of Budgets—that would not be responsible—but I can assure the Committee that I will not need to repeat a Budget on that scale because we have now wiped the slate clean and put our public finances on a firm footing. Indeed, in the spending review in two-and-a-bit months’…”

“First of all, let us see how other countries and other trading blocs respond. I spoke to Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis just before I came to give evidence to this Committee today, and we are discussing with other countries and with the EU the appropriate response to whatever announcements are made later today. The Pr…”

“I am not going to disagree with its analysis, but obviously, we are looking ourselves and with the Department for Business and Trade at a whole range of possible scenarios and preparing for all different eventualities. I think the OBR is really clear that the biggest impact comes from global tariffs, not UK-specific on…”

“That is also a really important point. I think that you had the FCA and maybe the PRA in—”

“I am sure that Sam Woods and Governor Andrew Bailey will also be in to give evidence. We are very much a supporter of high global standards. We also recognise that we operate in an internationally competitive environment, which is why at the end of last year the PRA announced that we will postpone the implementation of…”

“No, I certainly would not put it like that, but the US Administration are focused very clearly on improving the competitiveness of their economy; and as a global trading economy with a big financial services sector, we need to make sure that we remain competitive on that world stage if we are to secure jobs and investm…”

“In my Mansion House speech last November—”

“Yes. I set out a range of things to make financial services in the UK more competitive: the updated remit letters to the regulators, where we asked them to focus on regulating for growth, not just for investment—”

“What she said in her statement was not contradicted by anything that was given to the Office for Budget Responsibility.”

“Let me give you a couple of examples. We asked all the regulators, including the financial services ones, to come back with specific ideas that they could pursue to make the sector more competitive. The FCA, for example, suggested increasing the limit on contactless payments; also changing some of the rules around mort…”

“Some of this is coming in this year.”

“If you are a saver into a pension scheme, you should see the benefit with better returns on your pension savings. If you are saving into a local government pension scheme, that money should work better for your local community. These changes will have an impact on people’s lives. Financial services is such an important…”

“It is about two things: good jobs paying decent wages—jobs in this sector are highly competitive in terms of their wages and are increasingly distributed across the UK—and the efficient allocation of capital to fast-growing sectors. I want British start-ups and scale-ups, like some of the ones we have mentioned in this…”