Speeches by Reeves.

“Yes. My first meeting at the Treasury was on 5 July—the Friday afternoon. We then worked all weekend, and it was on that weekend that the £22 billion number was put to me, when I became Chancellor of the Exchequer.”

“We have now published the line-by-line account of the £22 billion. That was published alongside the Budget last week, and it was those numbers that I was taken through on that first weekend.”

“On 29 July I set out £5.5 billion of savings against that £22 billion, and in the Budget we announced, for example, £4.3 billion in the biggest ever package of savings on welfare fraud and error. We are making savings—we have made savings—but that financial pressure still exists.”

“If you are referring to public sector pay, the remits given to the independent pay review bodies were given by the previous Government, not this Government, and when evidence of affordability was given, no number was given around what was affordable, which, from my understanding, was pretty unprecedented. The independe…”

“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.”

“It was one of the many things that was put to me as an option. It is not something that we wanted to take forward. People have gone through a massive cost of living crisis in the last few years, and increasing council tax above the 5% increase a year that the previous Government capped it at would not be the right appr…”

“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…”

“But I expect all of us who use the NHS—either ourselves or our children—have had, in the last couple of months, a letter through the post from the NHS. They probably have our email, so we need to make sure that we are improving the use of technology to reduce costs and, indeed, to improve service to patients.”

“The £22.6 billion is day-to-day spending, but we have also announced £3.1 billion of additional capital investment in the health service next year. That is really important, because unless you are working with modern diagnostic equipment and you have NHS settings that are able to provide healthcare, you are not going t…”

“I am very happy to come back after the White Paper is published and answer more questions, and I am sure that the Work and Pensions Secretary would be happy to do that with the relevant Select Committee as well. I think that is a really important point. We all know that you cannot just spend your way to better public s…”

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

“We are only four months in, so ask us again in a year how it is going.”

“One of the things that I am really pleased about with the White Paper is that it is not just from the DWP, but something we have worked on across Government. That is the value of the mission boards, because they encourage that cross-team working. It has always been a criticism of Government that it works in silos, and …”

“The first year of this Government, so to July. We will be able to deliver those 40,000 additional appointments a week by then. As I said in answer to the question from Yuan Yang, we will be publishing the “Get Britain Working” White Paper in the next couple of weeks.”

“It would not be right for the NHS to prioritise people based on whether they are in work or able to get back to work. However, we have had a commitment from the NHS that the money we made available in the Budget last week will enable us to meet our commitment of 40,000 additional NHS appointments every single week, tak…”

“Thank you for asking that question as well. There is a section in the autumn Budget document about women in the economy, which I am really pleased about. I will not be able to find it now, but it is about the impact that our policies are having on women in the economy. It is still the case that women do the majority of…”

“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…”

“There is no time to waste. We are publishing the White Paper because we know how important that is and we have been working on that over the summer and into the autumn. It would be better for me to come back once that is published to give more evidence on it, but as you can see, that is a crucial part of our growth age…”