Rachel Reeves

Rachel Jane Reeves (born 13 February 1979) is a British politician and economist serving as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2021.

The result was the worst performance for a governing party since 1991.

Reeves worked as an economist at the Bank of England and British Embassy in Washington, D.C., between 2000 and 2006.

Reeves stood as the Labour Party parliamentary candidate in the Conservative safe seat of Bromley and Chislehurst at the 2005 general election, finishing second behind the sitting Conservative Party MP Eric Forth.

She moved to Leeds in 2006 to work for the retail arm of HBOS.

She was once interviewed for a job at Goldman Sachs, but turned it down, despite claiming that the job could have made her "a lot richer".

Reeves cites the influence of her father on her and her sister Ellie Reeves MP on her socially democratic politics.

She recalls how, when she was eight years old, her father, Graham, pointed out the then-Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock on the television and "told us that was who we voted for".

Reeves says she and her sister have "both known we were Labour since then".

She joined the Labour Party at the age of sixteen.

Following Forth's death in 2006, she also contested the 2006 by-election, and finished in fourth place.

Labour support fell from 10,241 votes to 1,925, in what was described as a "humiliation" for Labour.

A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament for Leeds West since 2010.

Reeves studied at New College, Oxford and the London School of Economics before working as an economist at the Bank of England, the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., and HBOS.

Elected at the 2010 general election, she served in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 2011 to 2013 and Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions from 2013 to 2015.

Reeves later sought nomination for the Leeds West seat at the 2010 general election, seeking to replace John Battle, who had chosen to retire.

She was selected to contest the seat from an all-women shortlist of Labour Party prospective parliamentary candidates.

She was elected with a majority of 7,016 on 6 May 2010 – a 5,794 reduction in the majority enjoyed by Battle.

In her maiden speech, delivered on 8 June 2010, Reeves praised the work of Battle and committed to continue fighting for justice for the victims of the Armley asbestos disaster and their families.

In a series of questions in Parliament, she enquired whether the government would honour promises by the previous government to compensate victims of asbestos diagnosed with pleural plaques, and bring legislation into force making it easier to pursue claims against insurers.

Following the 2010 election, Reeves supported Ed Miliband for the Labour leadership because she felt he was the candidate most willing to listen to what the voters were saying about where the party went wrong.

After becoming an MP, Reeves was appointed to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee then as Shadow Pensions Minister in October 2010.

In her role as Shadow Pensions Minister, she campaigned against the Government's proposed acceleration of equalising state pensions ages for men and women.

She was promoted to the post of Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury in October 2011.

Appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2013, Reeves proposed that anyone unemployed for two years, or one year if under 25 years old, would be required to take a guaranteed job or lose access to benefits.

This caused controversy within the Labour Party, and Reeves also stated that Labour would be "tougher" than the Conservative Party in cutting the benefits bill.

Reeves became a backbencher following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader in 2015, and served as chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee from 2017 to 2020.

She caused further controversy in early 2015 by stating "We [Labour] don't want to be seen as, and we're not, the party to represent those who are out of work".

Reeves was re-elected at the 2015 general election with an increased vote share of 48.0% and an increased majority of 10,727.

Following Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader in 2015, Reeves supported Owen Smith in the 2016 Labour Party leadership election.

In September 2016, Reeves described her constituency as being "like a tinderbox" that could explode if immigration was not curbed.

After Keir Starmer was elected as leader in 2020, he appointed Reeves as Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office, shadowing Michael Gove.

In May 2021, she replaced Anneliese Dodds as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

As Shadow Chancellor, Reeves has adhered to "modern supply-side economics", an economic policy which focuses on infrastructure, education and labour supply by rejecting tax cuts and deregulation.

In 2023, she coined the term "securonomics" to refer to her version of this economic policy.

Born in the London Borough of Lewisham, she is the daughter of teachers Graham and Sally Reeves.

She was educated at the comprehensive Cator Park School for Girls in Beckenham.

While at secondary school, she won a British Under-14 girls chess championship title in a tournament organised by the now-defunct British Women's Chess Association.

After sitting A-Levels in Politics, Economics, Mathematics and Further Mathematics, she read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at New College, Oxford (MA), achieving a 2:1.

She then graduated with an MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics.