Rachel Reeves – 2024 Speech at Labour Party Conference
The speech made by Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 23 September 2024.
Conference, thank you.
This time last year, I stood on this stage and I made a commitment.
I promised that we would get Britain building again.
Repair our NHS.
And power growth in every part of Britain.
Today, after fourteen wasted years, I stand here as your Chancellor of the Exchequer, ready to deliver on that commitment.
At this conference, we welcome more than 200 new Labour MPs – members of the most diverse Parliament in our country’s history.
Labour winning for the very first time, in sears like South-East Cornwall, the Isle of Wight, Aldershot, Banbury and Basingstoke; in Hexham, Altrincham, and the Ribble Valley.
And Labour is back, in the service of communities that we never should have lost.
In our port, coal, steel and mill towns. From Bolsover, Bassetlaw and Grimsby to Hartlepool, Rother Valley, Newton Aycliffe, and Bridgend.
And Conference, in Edinburgh, in Glasgow, across the central belt and out in the Western Isles, Labour is back in Scotland too.
So let me pay tribute to the people in this hall who made that difference.
Those who stayed and fought through the hard years.
Those who came back to our party under Keir’s leadership.
And those who joined us for the first time.
You helped change our party and you gave us this priceless chance to change our country for the better.
To all of you – a huge thank you.
In this hall one year ago, I stated my intention.
That the next time I addressed you, I would do so as the first female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Today, Conference, you can consider that a promise fulfilled.
Eight hundred years of the post of Chancellor of the Exchequer has existed.
Every one, a man.
On the fifth of July this year, we made history.
Every woman watching this will know no matter how high you climb, how hard you work, how qualified you are, there will always be moments when you are reminded some people still do not believe a woman can get the job done.
But millions of women in our party, in our trade unions and in every walk of life, beat back those doubts.
I’m here today because I worked hard, yes.
But most of all, I’m here because of the efforts of those who went before me.
Trailblazing women like Jennie Lee, Barbara Castle, and our friend, our inspiration, Harriet Harman.
And I’m here because of thousands of women, many of you in the hall today, who broke down barriers and defeated low expectations to pave the way for the rest of us.
I am a Labour Chancellor because of that collective endeavour.
I am the first woman Chancellor because of that collective endeavour.
And that collective endeavour does not stop here.
It falls to me, and to our generation of Labour women, to follow in the footsteps of those who went before us. To write the work of all women back into our economic story. To show to our daughters and our granddaughters that they need place no ceiling on their ambitions.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
But Conference, why is it that the British people put their trust in us for the first time in five general elections?
It is because, thanks to Keir’s leadership, we left no stone unturned to show that Labour is the party of economic responsibility and the party of working people.
We were elected because, for the first time in almost two decades, people looked at us – looked at me – and decided that Labour could be trusted with their money.
That is more than a political choice, or a single line in any manifesto.
It is about our values.
Because we saw what happened two years ago what happens when governments play fast and loose with the public finances: when the prices of food, energy and housing soar, it is working people with mortgages, rent and bills to pay who suffer the consequences.
I will not take that risk.
I will repay the trust that people put in us.
Trust is hard earned – and is easily squandered.
Just ask the Conservatives.
They paid the price for their incompetence, their dishonesty, their rule breaking.
We’ve had years of division and decline that left working people worse off, not just in the heaviest defeat in their party’s history, but the heaviest defeat for any governing party in British history.
And Conference I can tell you – today I am so proud that our women’s Parliamentary Labour Party is bigger than the entire Conservative parliamentary party.
And so, where will the Conservative Party go next?
What a clash of the titans their leadership contest has become.
The former Home Secretary who called the Rwanda scheme “batshit” and, of course, is now pledging to bring it back.
The former Immigration Minister, who found himself too right-wing to work with Suella Braverman.
The “moderate” candidate, the former Security Minister, who says he “acts on his principles” – previously demonstrated by backing Liz Truss to be Prime Minister.
And then there’s the former Business Secretary who claims she “became working class” at the age of sixteen.
But Conference, the Tories’ failure was not just because they were incompetent or deluded.
Not just because they put party before country – though, of course, both of those are true.
It is because they do not understand the world as it is today.
They do not understand the premium on economic stability, in an uncertain world.
They do not understand that, in our new age of insecurity, government cannot just get out of the way and leave markets to their own devices.
Instead, the Tories cling to the discredited trickle-down and trickle-out dogma that a strong economy can be built through the contribution of just a few people, a few parts of the country, or a few industries.
Their ideas choked off investment, opened wide gaps between different parts of the country, and it suffocated growth and living standards.
We will not make those mistakes.
Yet, when their ideas were found wanting, what did they do? They doubled down.
Never forget what the Conservatives did: two years ago today, in their clamour to cut taxes for the richest, they crashed the economy, sent mortgages spiraling, and put pensions in peril.
You will hear many things at their conference next week.
But you won’t hear an apology.
No apology for the cost of your mortgage.
No apology for crumbling classrooms and rising waiting lists.
No apology for mismanaging our public finances, degrading our institutions, and crashing our global standing.
They do not care.
And they have learned nothing.
So be in no doubt, given the chance, they will try and do it all over again.
Only we, only the Labour Party, can stop them.
So we must have no complacency.
A relentless focus on the priorities of the British people.
And iron discipline.
We cannot give them that chance.
So let’s resolve together today that we will not give them that chance.
Now, I know that you are impatient for change. I am too.
But Conference, because of that legacy left by the Conservatives, the road ahead is steeper and harder than we expected.
You don’t need to take my word for it.
Figures released only on Friday showed another month of record borrowing.
Debt at one hundred percent of GDP.
That is the inheritance that they left, in black and white.
In my first weeks at the Treasury, the true extent of the Tories’ irresponsibility was revealed to me: £22 billion of spending plans, this year, that the previous government did not disclose.
Which they had no plan to pay for and which they had covered up from Parliament and from the British people.
Departments had been allocated money which they were spending, but which did not exist.
The money was not there.
A £22 billion black hole – which, if not tackled now, will pose risks for years to come.
That included more than £6 billion overspend on the asylum system – including their failed Rwanda policy.
Almost £3 billion on rail projects.
The nation’s reserve – intended for genuine emergencies – set to be spent three times over only three months into the financial year.
They were reckless.
They were irresponsible.
And they acted in that way, not because they believed it was right for our country – but because they believed it might rescue their party from defeat.
They promised solutions that they knew could never be paid for.
Roads that would never be built.
Public transport that would never arrive.
And hospitals that would never treat a single patient.
They showed no regard for ordinary, working people.
And they did not care about the consequences.
It was made clear to me that failure to act swiftly could undermine the UK’s fiscal position – with implications for public debt, mortgages and prices.
And so, I took action to make the in-year savings necessary.
We are reviewing plans for new hospitals, promised by the Conservatives, but which they did not budget for.
We cancelled road and rail projects, promised by the Conservatives, but which they did not budget for.
And I made the choice to means test the winter fuel payment, so that it is only targetted at those most in need.
I know that not everyone – in this hall, or in the country – will agree with every decision I make.
But I will not duck those decisions. Not for political expediency. Not for personal advantage.
Faced with that £22 billion black hole that the Conservatives left this year and with the triple lock ensuring that the state pension will rise by an estimated £1,700 over the course of this Parliament, I judged it the right decision in the circumstances we inherited.
I did not take those decisions lightly.
I will never take the responsibilities of this office lightly.
And I will never take lightly the trust of voters who have been burned too often by politicians who put ideology, party and self-interest over the interests of the British people.
And so, we must deal with another Tory legacy.
Conference, I know how hard people work for their money.
Taxpayers’ money should be spent with the same care with which working people spend their own money.
And so, one year ago, I promised you that this Labour government would wage a war on Tory waste.
It has begun.
I pledged that we would aim to halve government consultancy spend – and we have already announced savings this year.
I pledged that we would cut down on the excesses of Tory ministers’ private air travel – and we have already cancelled the £40m contract for Rishi Sunak’s VIP helicopter.
And I pledged that we would act on the carnival of waste and fraud that took place during the COVID pandemic.
Billions of pounds of public money handed out to friends and donors of the Conservative Party.
Billions more defrauded from the taxpayer.
More than a billion pounds spent on PPE that either did not arrive or was not fit for purpose.
All under the cover of the greatest crisis of my lifetime.
On entering government, we found £674 million of contracts in dispute, where we inherited a recommendation from the previous government that any attempt to reclaim that money should be abandoned.
The Tories simply did not care.
But Labour will not stand for it.
I will not stand for it.
So: as I promised, we are appointing a Covid Corruption Commissioner.
It could not be more urgent.
And I have put a block on any contract being abandoned or waived until it has been independently assessed by that Commissioner.
I won’t turn a blind eye to rip-off artists and fraudsters.
I won’t turn a blind eye to those who used a national emergency to line their own pockets.
I won’t let them get away with it.
That money belongs in our police, it belongs in our health service, and it belongs in our schools.
And Conference, we want that money back.
Next month, I will deliver the first budget of this Labour government.
The first Labour budget in fourteen years.
And because I know how much damage has been done in those fourteen years, let me say one thing straight up: there will be no return to austerity.
Conservative austerity was a destructive choice for our public services – and for investment and growth too.
Yes, we must deal with the Tory legacy – and that means tough decisions.
But I won’t let that dim our ambition for Britain.
So, it will be a budget with real ambition.
A budget to fix the foundations.
A budget to deliver the change that we promised.
A budget to rebuild Britain.
And my budget will keep our manifesto commitments.
Every choice we make will be within a framework of economic and fiscal stability. You’d expect nothing less.
We said we would not increase taxes on working people, which is why we will not increase the basic, higher or additional rates of income tax, national insurance, or VAT.
And we will cap corporation tax at its current level for the duration of this Parliament.
Conference, as promised, we will extend the Energy and Profits Levy on oil and gas producers to invest in homegrown energy here in Britain.
We will end the non-dom tax loopholes.
And we will crack down on tax avoidance and tax evasion.
That is the difference that a Labour government will make.
We are already delivering on that last promise to cut down on tax avoidance and tax evasion.
Strengthening the powers of HMRC, under the leadership of the Exchequer Secretary James Murray and recruiting 5,000 new tax compliance officers.
Because this government will not sit back and indulge the minority who avoid paying the taxes that they owe.
And Conference, we will enact another manifesto commitment.
Because I know every parent has aspiration for their children. And I know the strain that our state schools have been under.
This government will introduce VAT on private school fees, to invest in our state schools.
It is the fair choice, the responsible choice, the Labour choice, to support the 94 percent of children in state schools.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
This budget will be a budget for economic growth.
It will be a budget for investment.
Because today we find ourselves at the very bottom of the G7 league table for economy-wide investment as a share of our GDP.
And we must change that.
Conference, I believe in a better Britain.
A Britain of opportunity, fairness, and enterprise.
I know that country has sometimes felt far off in recent years.
As our growth, our productivity and family finances fall behind.
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The British capacity for inventiveness, enterprise and old-fashioned hard work has not gone away.
So believe me when I say – my optimism for Britain burns brighter than ever.
My ambition knows no limits.
Because I can see the prize on offer, if we make the right choices now.
Stability is the crucial foundation on which all our ambitions will be built.
The essential precondition for business to invest with confidence and for families to plan for the future.
The Liz Truss experiment showed us that any plan for growth without stability leads to ruin.
So we will make the choices necessary to secure our public finances and fix the foundations for lasting growth.
Stability, paired with reform, will forge the conditions for businesses to invest and for consumers to spend with confidence.
Growth is the challenge.
And investment is the solution.
Investment in new industries, new technologies, and new infrastructure.
Let me put what we are doing into some perspective.
If the UK economy had grown at just the average rate of other OECD economies under the Tories, our economy would be £140 billion larger today.
That would have provided an extra £58 billion to invest in our public services without raising a single tax rate by a single penny.
Revenue to invest in our schools, our hospitals, our police, and all our public services.
And that’s not the limit of my ambitions.
Because, with growth, we will create jobs that pay enough to raise a family on – for you and your children.
Put real money in the pockets of working people.
And wealth in all of our communities, that flows into vibrant high streets.
This is how we’ll make Britain the best place to start and grow a business – whatever background you come from, wherever you grew up.
Things built to last, and exported around the world are made here in Britain.
This is how we’ll achieve what we promised – the five missions that will comprise a decade of national renewal.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
During the election campaign, I visited businesses all over Britain.
From historic brands seizing the opportunities of the future, to innovative start-ups at the cutting edge, to high street businesses breathing new life into their local communities.
Our world-leading universities, creative industries, life sciences, tech companies and professional services.
I see immense potential, everywhere I go.
But for every success story, there is potential held back.
Entrepreneurs struggling to access finance.
High street businesses punished by our outdated system of business rates.
Builders frustrated by a planning system which hands power to the blockers.
Exporters tied up in red tape by a failed Brexit deal.
Too many people out of work through chronic illness, waiting for treatment, or without the skills, training and security they need to fulfil their potential.
And a welfare state that does not always incentivise work.
Brilliant young people shut out of the opportunities they deserve.
And whole industries held back by underinvestment or the lack of a real strategy for their future.
So we must learn the lesson from the Tories’ failure.
We must build for growth, in a changed world.
In this age of insecurity, growth requires stability but not stability alone.
It requires active government.
And it requires the contribution of people in every part of Britain, not just a few.
Where there are vested interests, outdated practices or institutional barriers obstructing productive investment – we will confront them head on.
Where active government is called for, this government will act.
And Conference, it is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investments, to recognising the benefits too.
So we are calling time on the ideas of the past.
Calling time on the days when government stood back, left crucial sectors to fend for themselves, and turned a blind eye to where things are made and who makes them.
The era of trickle-down, trickle-out economics is over.
And so, I can announce that next month, alongside the Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, we will publish our plans for a new industrial strategy for Britain.
A strategy for driving and shaping long-term growth in our manufacturing and service sectors.
A strategy to unlock investment, create jobs and deliver prosperity.
A strategy to help break down barriers to regional growth, speed ahead to net zero and clean power by 2030, and build prosperity on strong and secure foundations.
Because when I said that this Labour Party is proudly pro-business and proudly pro-worker – I meant it.
This mission – for investment, for growth, for jobs – is why in a few weeks’ time, this government will be hosting a major international investment summit bringing together hundreds of business leaders, to send a simple message.
That after years of instability and uncertainty, Britain is open for business once again.
And this mission is why we will reform our pensions system; overhaul business rates; give power to our mayors and regional leaders; deliver a plan to get waiting lists down and people back to work; and forge a closer relationship with our neighbours in the European Union, while pursuing trade deals to open up new markets too.
It’s why we launched a new National Wealth Fund, to invest in new and growing industries right across Britain.
And it is why Angela Rayner and I have wasted no time in ripping out the blockages in our planning system so we can get Britain building again.
You know, within 72 hours of taking office, we did more to unblock the planning system than the Conservatives did in fourteen years – including an end to the senseless Tory ban on onshore wind.
And conference, we won’t stop there.
Onshore wind to bring down your energy bills.
New data centres, for good jobs in the industries of the future.
And housing – for the decent home that every family deserves.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
If you want to start or grow a business.
If you want to export overseas.
If you want to build in Britain but fear local opposition and delay.
If you have felt the quiet desperation of jobs, opportunity and investment slipping away.
Then be assured: your ambitions, your hopes, your future will not be held back any longer.
I have promised this hall before that what you will see, in your town, in your city, is a sight we have not seen often enough in our country.
Shovels in the ground.
Cranes in the sky.
The sounds and the sights of the future arriving.
We will make that a reality.
Jobs in the automotive industry of the future in the industrial heartland of the West Midlands.
Jobs in life sciences, across the North West.
Clean technology across South Yorkshire.
A thriving gaming industry in Dundee.
And jobs in carbon capture and storage, on Teesside, Humberside, and right here on Merseyside too.
Wealth created, and wealth shared, in every part of Britain.
That is the prize.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
And Conference, because growth must be built by the many, its proceeds must be felt by the many too.
And because of the indignity and insecurity that stems from the broken link between hard work and fair reward, we will deliver on another promise: a new deal for working people.
With a ban on exploitative zero hour contracts; an end to fire and rehire; and a minimum wage which takes into account the real cost of living.
So, at last, we will have a genuine living wage in our country.
For dignity. For security. For growth.
This Labour government will make work pay.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
Within weeks of entering office, we faced another choice.
We could accept the independent pay review bodies’ recommendations and give public sector workers their first above inflation pay rise in fourteen years.
Or we could allow further industrial disruption to wreak havoc on our public services.
Patients having hospital appointments cancelled.
Parents unable to send their children to school.
Key workers – the men and women who kept us safe during the pandemic – forced to pay the price for a crisis that they did not create.
The Conservatives gave no guidance to the pay review bodies on affordability, nor did they budget for the recommendations they offered.
And the Conservatives will deny that this was a choice that had to be made at all.
They will claim that it was a viable strategy to let industrial action continue, to let a crisis in recruitment and retention spiral and let public services deteriorate yet further.
That was not a choice I was willing to make.
And it was not a choice that was in the national interest either.
So, I am proud. I am proud to stand here as the first Chancellor in fourteen years to have delivered a meaningful, real pay rise to millions of public sector workers.
We made that choice. We made that choice not just because public sector workers needed that pay rise.
But because it was the right choice for parents, patients and for the British public.
The right choice for recruitment and retention.
And it was the right choice for our country.
If the Conservative Party, if they want a fight about this.
If they want to argue we should have ignored the independent pay review bodies.
That public sector workers’ pay should fall further behind the cost of living.
That ordinary families should pay the price of industrial action.
If the Conservatives Party want a fight about who can be trusted to make the right choices for our public services and those who use them.
Then I say bring it on.
Public services that we can be proud of, once again with a Labour government.
That is the Britain we’re building.
And that is the Britain that I believe in.
Let me tell you where I’m coming from.
My mum and dad were primary school teachers.
And I’m really proud of that.
My mum was a special needs teacher at my school.
And my dad was a headteacher at another local primary.
I know how hard my parents worked.
How dedicated they were.
The long hours they both put in – my sister Ellie and I playing in my dad’s office while he worked late.
And they had to do so in the face of a Conservative government that, in its every action, showed it didn’t care about kids in schools like theirs.
Ordinary, comprehensive schools like the one I went to and the kids I grew up with.
My mum and dad lived their values and they taught me the value of public service.
Of hard work.
Of giving something back to the community.
I joined this party because of three words spoken in a conference hall in Blackpool twenty eight years ago: education, education, education.
I joined this party because I believe that strong public services are the backbone of any decent society.
Because I believe that people should rise and fall on their own merit, not on the circumstances of their birth.
And because I believe that we do not have to choose between a fair society and a strong economy.
I don’t want kids to succeed ‘against all odds’.
I want them to succeed because they deserve it.
Because the odds aren’t stacked against them.
That’s the Britain that I want to live in – just like every other parent who wants the best for their kids.
So I will judge my time in office a success if I know that at the end of it there are working-class kids from ordinary backgrounds who lead richer lives, their horizons expanded, and able to achieve and thrive in Britain today.
That starts by taking the first steps to delivering on another manifesto commitment: our promise, led by the work of our Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, to introduce free breakfast clubs in every primary school across England.
Today I can announce that that will start in hundreds of schools for primary school-aged pupils from this April, ahead of the national rollout.
An investment in our young people.
An investment in reducing child poverty.
An investment in our economy.
And an investment so that, in years to come, we can proudly say that we left behind a Britain where the next generation has a chance to do better than those who came before it.
Conference – that is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain that I believe in.
The work of change is only just beginning.
And the stakes are high.
Trust is a fragile thing.
And we’ve seen the consequences when mainstream politics comes up short.
It falls to us to show that politics can be a force for positive change.
Not through words, but through action.
Through progress towards that Britain of opportunity, fairness and enterprise.
That is our task.
That is my task.
It comes with a great weight of responsibility.
I embrace it.
It will mean hard work.
I am ready for it.
The British people put their trust in us.
And we will repay it.
And when someone asks you – does this government represent me?
When they ask – whose side are they on?
You can tell them: when you work hard, Labour will make sure you get your fair reward.
When barriers obstruct opportunity and investment is constricted, Labour will tear down those barriers.
When working people have paid the price for the Tory chaos, while waste spirals and tax is avoided, Labour will act.
And when the national interest demands hard choices, Labour will not duck them.
We will make fair choices.
For decent public services and the people who rely on them.
For investment and opportunity in every part of Britain.
For an end to the naysaying, the division, the defeatism.
An end to the low investment that feeds decline.
And an end to easy answers, the empty promises, and the Tory stagnation.
Conference, you can tell them that we stand – that we will always stand – with working people.
We changed our party.
Let us now change our country.
This is our moment.
Our chance to show that politics can make a difference.
That Britain’s best days lie ahead.
That our families, our communities, our country need not look on while the future is built somewhere else.
That we can, and we will, make our own future here.
A Britain trading, competing, and leading in a changed world.
A Britain founded on the talent and the effort of working people.
That is the Britain we’re building.
That is the Britain I believe in.
Together, let’s go and build it.
Thank you.
