UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves has called for a new approach to public sector investment, in a set-piece speech at the Labour party conference in Liverpool.
On a day when Britain’s governing party sought to overcome internal divisions over its plans to cut winter fuel payments to pensioners, Reeves sought to emphasise a pro-growth agenda ahead of next month’s budget.
“It is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investment to recognising the benefits too,” she said.
“So we are calling time on the ideas of the past,” she added, “calling time on the days when governments stood back, left crucial sectors to fend for themselves, and turned a blind eye to where things are made and who makes them.”
The Chancellor’s speech was interrupted by a heckler protesting against the UK’s stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict. Earlier in the day, delegates had booed a decision to delay a non-binding vote in which the leadership faces possible defeat over its plans to means test winter fuel payments.
Reeves argued in her speech that Labour had to respond to what she characterised as a £22bn black hole left in its accounts by the previous Conservative government.
After days in which she has been criticised for a downbeat message, the Chancellor added that October’s Budget would have “real ambition” and that there would be no return to austerity.
“This budget will be a budget for economic growth; it will be a budget for investment,” she said. “My ambition knows no limits, because I can see the prize on offer if we make the right choices now.”
In another remark highlighting the role of the state, she said: “Government cannot just get out of the way and leave markets to their own devices”.
This is a developing story
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