Reeves says she won’t let critics get her down

Rachel Reeves has said she will not let critics “get me down” following a bumpy few days for the UK economy.

The chancellor was speaking to the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast towards the end of a week which saw the country’s borrowing costs rise to the highest level for several years.

Reeves said the rise was “not a British phenomenon” and that other countries had also seen borrowing costs increase.

She also insisted she had “got what it takes to deliver for people in this country” and the ideas to “turn things around”.

On Thursday, figures showed the UK economy grew by 0.1% in November fuelling concern that growth could remain stagnant for some time to come.

The Conservatives have accused the chancellor of “burying her head in the sand” and called for an “urgent change of course”.

The Liberal Democrat’s Treasury spokeswoman Daisy Cooper said Reeves had “put the handbrake on the economy with her misguided jobs tax” – a reference to the rise to the National Insurance paid by businesses.

The rise has drawn criticism from businesses who have warned it could lead to price rises and inevitable job losses.

On Friday, the boss of retail giant Next said the tax change could make it “harder for people to enter the workforce”.

Lord Wolfson told the BBC that Next’s wage bill is set to rise by £70m, leading to a cut in the number of employee hours worked – either through fewer workers or fewer hours per employee.

He called on the government to stagger the changes to avoid jobs or hours being cut.

Officials figures released on Friday showed retail sales volumes in the UK fell 0.3% in December, despite analysts predicting a 0.4% increase.

Hannah Finselbach, a senior statistician at the Office for National Statistics, said the drop was driven by a “very poor month” for food sales, which in December sank to their lowest level since 2013.

However, it was a “better month” for clothing stores and household goods shops, where retailers “reported strong Christmas trading”, she added.

Speaking to the BBC, Reeves said the current levels of growth were “not good enough” and that boosting the figures was the “number one mission of the Labour government”.

As part of that mission, Reeves said she would be meeting regulators to encourage them to “do what is needed” to boost growth.

“We are not going to be able to grow the economy if the regulators keep doing what they’re doing.”

She added that there was not “a room big enough” to meet all the UK’s regulators.

Since coming to power in July, Reeves has faced criticism for several of her decisions including removing the winter fuel payment from all but the poorest pensioners, changing inheritance tax rules for farmers and opting not to compensate women affected by changes to the state pension age.

She defended those moves as “difficult decisions” that were “the right decisions in the national interest”.

She added that she wished she had arrived in the job and been told “‘the money’s coming in’… then I could have made different decisions”.

“But in the circumstances that I inherited, I judged that I had to make sure the sums added up.”

Asked if her decisions had damaged business confidence, Reeves asked: “What was the alternative?

“All decisions have consequences but imagine the alternative.

“Imagine that I hadn’t addressed that problem and now when financial markets look at the UK, they would be saying ‘this is a government that is not real about the situation that it faces, it is spending more money than it is bringing in. It’s having to borrow more and more’.”

Asked about the criticism she had faced, Reeves said: “I haven’t taken it personally.

“Some people don’t want me to succeed. Some people don’t want this government to succeed.”

The chancellor added: “That’s fair enough. That’s their 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.”

Later in the BBC podcast, Reeves revealed her personal efforts to reduce food waste.

She was lightheartedly questioned by Robinson, who said: “I’m told you bring your lunch in a Tupperware and if there were leftover pastries from a meeting, you would save the pastry because you didn’t want it to go to waste”.

“I still do,” the chancellor confirmed, recalling an incident a few days ago where there had been leftovers from a work breakfast: “I’m not sure if the health secretary would approve of this, but I had a pastry for breakfast and a pastry for lunch.

“I think that’s very good value for money” she said, “but might not be very good for my waistline”.

You can listen to the Political Thinking with Nick Robinson interview with Rachel Reeves on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday at 17:30 GMT or on BBC Sounds.

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