Speeches by Reeves.

“I think it is really important, because getting people back to work cannot be something that the DWP is going to achieve alone.”

“I am not suggesting that they should have been settled before the election, but what I am saying is that those pressures were well known by the Government at the time of the general election.”

“I am not going to write five years’ worth of Budgets—I have just written one! I would say that the commitments that we made in our manifesto, around income tax, employee national insurance, VAT and capping corporation tax at its current rate, are for the duration of this Parliament.”

“We are not looking at road pricing. I think you make a fair challenge. At the moment, though, the focus is on trying to increase the uptake of electric vehicles. We have fallen behind the target that the previous Government set for the roll-out of electric vehicles, and that has an impact on manufacturers, which will b…”

“It is baked in, as it was for the previous Government, but it did not feel, given the cost of living challenges that families and businesses continue to face and given the uncertainty in the middle east, that it was the right policy approach at the moment.”

“Thank you for your question. Now I get to spend even more time in beautiful Darlington, because of our economic campus there. As I said in answer to an earlier question, the growth mission board will meet there later this month. It is fantastic that, because of that campus, we have civil servants who otherwise I don’t …”

“That is a question, really, for the OBR to answer. Our job is to develop the right policies and give evidence to the Office for Budget Responsibility about the impact that they can have on potential growth in our economy. I am determined to stretch all the levers, whether on planning, on skills, on labour markets or on…”

“Thank you very much for that question and for your kind words. The output gap is a measurement at a point in time, as you know. It comes back to my answer to Dame Meg’s question about what opportunities there are to grow the economy. We want to grow the UK economy through what I describe as modern supply-side policies …”

“The R&D budget next year is £20 billion; that is significant investment in research and development. And in the second phase of the spending review, which we will set out in the spring of next year, we will set 10-year budgets for R&D and other capital spending to give that longer-term certainty. On Friday last week, j…”

“I have to say a couple of things. We are keeping it flat as a share of GDP, so it is growing in real terms, over the course of this Parliament, in line with GDP. It is £100 billion of additional investment. I think that is the responsible path. There are obviously guardrails on our investment rule around how we can inv…”

“We have not had the chance to meet before, but I am very much looking forward to working with you and taking questions from you in this Committee. You had evidence yesterday from Richard Hughes and I think he noted that the gilt market response was just a response to higher volumes of gilt issuances. He added that gilt…”

“In the election campaign and the manifesto, we set out the two fiscal rules. The first was to balance day-to-day spending with tax receipts, and the second was to get debt down as a share of our economy. I do take very seriously the importance of ensuring that markets understand Government policy and the profile of Gov…”

“Yes—so I regularly meet both the Debt Management Office and the Governor of the Bank of England; I have met both since the Budget and I talk to them regularly. I am sorry—I have met the chief executive of the DMO since the Budget, and I have spoken to the Governor of the Bank of England. The week before the Budget, I h…”

“We had an auction of Government gilts yesterday, and that was very comfortably oversubscribed, which is very welcome. If you look at the forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility for interest rates and inflation over the course of the Parliament, both are on a downward trajectory. If you take inflation, it pe…”

“Yes—see you in Darlington soon, Lola McEvoy. We will make sure at that meeting that we have representation, for example, from our mayors, because delivering growth is not just a Government mission; it is now our national mission, and we know that we cannot just deliver growth from Westminster or Whitehall. We have got …”

“Oh, the mission boards, yes. We have had two or three meetings of the growth mission board, which I chair. I think we have about four or five permanent members of that—Cabinet members, and then other Cabinet members attend based on our discussions. The next meeting of the growth mission board is later in November, and …”

“Well, we have another couple of months before the inauguration. Obviously, we will begin those conversations. We will prepare for different eventualities. I absolutely do not want to sound in any way sanguine, but on the other hand, I am optimistic about our ability to shape the global economic agenda, as we have under…”

“We’ll not be doing that.”

“Thank you very much. We have not had a chance to work together before, and I look forward to taking questions from you today and in future on this Select Committee. Congratulations on your election. I am not going to dispute the independent analysis of the Office for Budget Responsibility. I have a huge amount of respe…”

“It is really important to note that there is a floor beneath which wages cannot fall, and that has just gone up by 6.7% in the national living wage increase, and it has gone up by more for workers aged between 18 and 21. The lowest-paid workers will not see any of the national insurance increase passed on to them, beca…”