STORY: :: The likely new UK finance minister Rachel Reeves wins seat

:: July 4, 2024

:: Leeds, United Kingdom

:: Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor

“Thank you. It is a huge honour and a privilege to have been returned as the Labour member of Parliament for Leeds West and Pudsey.”

“We have campaigned as we mean to go on as a government of unity, not of division. A government of wealth creation and a government in the national interest. Country first, party second. That is our promise to Britain. That is my promise to the people of Leeds West and Pudsey. We will not let you down. I will not let you down and I can’t wait to get started.”

Reeves, 45, previously worked as an economist at the Bank of England and is set to become finance minister if Labour win the election.

She has said Labour will stick to strict fiscal rules about not borrowing to fund day-to-day spending, but has opened the door to increased government investment, funded by borrowing, to shape strategically important markets, echoing the “modern supply side economics” policies advocated by U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Reeves has dubbed her own approach ‘securonomics’.