Speeches by Reeves.

“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…”

“Thank you very much, and it is a real privilege and pleasure to be here today to take questions from your Committee. Growth is the No. 1 mission of this Government and something we are determined to deliver, because, in the end, it is economic growth that drives up living standards and ensures that we have the money bo…”

“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…”

“On this point about the US, we are not just a passive actor in this; it is a trade relationship with the United States, and we will make strong representations about the importance of free and open trade, not just between ourselves and the United States, but globally. The US also benefits from that access to free and o…”

“First of all, thank you very much, John Glen, for what you said. We were opposite each other at the Dispatch Box for a number of years, and I think you know the esteem with which my party holds you and how much we enjoyed facing you—if that is the right word—across the Dispatch Box. I look forward to taking questions f…”

“No, I think this is all upside, because the OBR do not take into account our planning reforms. That is not a disrespect that I am giving to the OBR; this is early on in the process. We are developing that work. We have already called in a number of planning decisions. We have got rid of the effective moratorium on onsh…”

“Our growth plans are not just about planning, but I honestly believe that, after stability, planning is the biggest thing that this Government can do to unlock growth, whether that is in energy infrastructure, digital infrastructure, transport—”

“Thank you very much, Chair. When I arrived at the Treasury that first weekend, it was made really clear to me that the starting point for my inheritance was not the forecast in the Budget from March, and that the actual spending that was happening was significantly higher than that. You can see that in the monthly publ…”

“Yes, and the OBR said it was an upside risk to their growth forecast. We were less than four months into this new Government when the OBR put together its forecast, and we have more work to do to deliver on that growth mission. When I talk to businesses, big and small, they say that two things are most important. The f…”

“I think we did make the Budget announcements in the Budget. I think it was important in terms of the fiscal rules to indicate to markets how the investment and stability rules would work, but even those—the measure we were using, the timeframe to meeting our rules and all of that—were announced to Parliament.”

“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…”

“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…”