Rachel Reeves says cutting winter fuel payments was ‘right decision in circumstances we inherited’ – Labour conference live

Reeves says cutting winter fuel payments was 'right decision in circumstances we inherited'

Reeves is now restating the assessment of the public finances, and the £22bn black hole in the current spending budget for this year, that she outline to parliament in July.

When she took office, she was told that failure to act quickly would undermine the UK’s fiscal position, “with implications for public debt, mortgages and prices”.

She says she decided to means-test the winter fuel payments.

I know that not everyone in this hall or in the country will agree with every decision that I make. I will not duck those decisions, not for political expediency, not for personal advantage.

But she says, given the £22bn black hole, and the fact the triple lock will lead to the state pension rising by an estimated £1,700 over the course of this parliament, she judged cutting the winter fuel payment “the right decision in the circumstances that we inherited”.

Rachel Reeves. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters

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Steve Howell, who was deputy director of strategy and communications for Labour when Jeremy Corbyn was leader in 2017, says Rachel Reeves’ reply to the protesters (see 1.48pm) was nonsensical.

Rachel Reeves (right) being congratulated by her sister, Ellie Reeves, the Labour party chair and Cabinet Office minister, after the speech. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Climate Resistance defends interrupting Reeves' speech, saying Labour should put people before profit

Two men have been ejected from the Labour party conference after disrupting the chancellor’s speech with a protest about pollution and arms exports to Israel, PA Media reports. PA says:

The activists from protest group Climate Resistance were led from the conference centre in handcuffs and placed in a police van before being driven away.

Shortly after Rachel Reeves began her speech, the pair unfurled a banner reading “Still backing polluters, still arming Israel – we voted for change” and shouted slogans before they were escorted from the hall by security.

In response, Reeves said: “This is a changed Labour party, a Labour party that represents working people, not a party of protest.”

Climate Resistance spokesperson Sam Simons said: “Labour promised us change – instead we’re getting more of the same. The same pandering to the fossil fuel industry; the same arms licences that are fuelling a genocide in Gaza, and the same austerity that sees the poorest hit hardest.

“It’s time for Labour to start putting the needs of people before the interests of profit. That means immediately stopping arms licences to Israel, blocking new oil and gas, and standing up for the communities already being devastated by the climate crisis.”

One of the protesters interrupting the speech. Photograph: Temilade Adelaja/Reuters

The two protesters interrupting the speech. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

RCN nurses vote to reject pay offer, as Reeves she's proud of offering public sector workers 'meaningful' increase

Here is an extract from the Royal College of Nursing’s news release about the nurses voting against the government’s pay offer. It said:

Members of the Royal College of Nursing, the union and professional body for nursing staff, have voted to reject the UK government’s NHS pay award for 2024/25 in England.

Two-thirds of nursing staff voted against the current year’s pay award on a record high turnout for the RCN, with 145,000 members casting a vote.

The RCN is the largest trade union in the NHS in England and the only NHS union whose members voted not to accept the award.

The pay award was announced by the chancellor on Monday 29 July and the 5.5% increase is expected to be paid next month. The pay of an experienced nurse fell by 25% in real terms under the Conservative governments of 2010 to 2024.

The high turnout in this consultation surpassed the level seen in two statutory ballots for industrial action held by the union in 2022 and 2023, the first of which permitted six months of strike action by nursing staff.

The number of nursing students starting university courses this month is 21% lower than three years ago, despite the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, and the NHS in England is officially 32,000 nurses short.

And in a letter to Wes Streeting, the health secretary, Prof Nicola Ranger, the RCN general secretary and chief executive, said:

We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the determination of nursing staff to stand up for themselves, their patients and the NHS they believe in …

Our members do not yet feel valued and they are looking for urgent action, not rhetorical commitments. Their concerns relate to understaffed shifts, poor patient care and nursing careers trapped at the lowest pay grades – they need to see that the government’s reform agenda will transform their profession as a central part of improving care for the public.

The announcement came as Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, told the Labour conference she was proud the government had offered public sector workers “a meaningful, real pay rise”. (See 12.39pm.)

Reeves' speech - snap verdict

After 24 hours of speeches from cabinet ministers which have mostly been content-lite, news-free and presentationally bland (David Lammy’s was the only one with a bit of rhetorical oomph), Rachel Reeves finally delivered an address full of passion and grit, something genuinely stirring.

The delegates seemed to like it. The passage on the Covid corruption commissioner went down best (see 12.24pm), but there were plenty of other passages were Reeves was getting loud and long applause. Structurally, this caused a problem, because she kept delivering lines where she was rising to a crescendo and it felt the speech was about to end. She was also smiling more than usual, and not always naturally (a Gordon Brown trait). But it was optimism, not pessimism. (The Times, not the Telegraph called this one right – see 8.10am.)

If the Covid corruption passage got the most applause, the one that mattered most was the one about the “sights and sounds of the future”. (See 12.36pm.) It is not enough for Labour to say all the pain in the budget will be worth it if it delivers a better future; ministers need to explain what that future will look like. That paragraph was the best answer to this essay question heard so far at the conference.

But there was nothing very new about how the government will get there (not a problem if you think the planning overhaul already announced will do the trick, but a big flaw if you don’t). In fact, there was nothing very new policy-wise at all. That may be because it is all being held back for the budget, and some key decisions may not have been taken.

Reeves was also unfortunate in that, more or less at the moment when she was defending the public sector pay increases, the Royal College of Nursing announced that it is rejecting the pay award for 2024-25. More on that in a moment.

Reeves ended with a peroration about the need to change the country.

We changed our party. Now let us 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 that 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.

Cabinet minister listening to Rachel Reeves’ speech. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

Reeves is now talking about Labour being on the side of working people.

The British people have 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 … Labour will act and when the national interest demands hard choices, Labour will not duck them.

Reeves defends the pay rises for public sector workers announced by Labour.

I am proud to stand here as the first chancellor in 14 years to have delivered a meaningful, real pay rise to millions of public sector workers we make.

We made that choice not just because public sector workers needed a 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.

Reeves promises more building - 'the sounds and sights of the future arriving'

Reeves says the government is committed to promoting housebuilding. The government did more on this in 72 hours than the Tories did in 14 years, she says.

I have promised this hall before, but what you will see in your town, in your city, is a sight that 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 sector 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.

Rachel Reeves giving her speech. Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA

Reeves says she wants Treasury to be more positive about benefits of investment

Reeves says she is “calling time” on the Treasury’s previous approach to investment.

It is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investment to recognizing the benefits too.

So we are calling time on the ideas of the past, 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 era of trickle down, trickle out, economics is over, and so I can announce, that next month, alongside our business secretary Jonathan Reynolds, I will publish our plans for a new industrial strategy for Britain.

The line about the benefits of investment is important. See 9.58am for more on this.

Reeves says, if the UK had grown at the rate of the OECD average under the Tory years, the economy would be £140bn larger than it is today. That would mean the government having £58bn a year more for 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”.

Reeves says her ambition knows no limits.

The British capacity for inventiveness, enterprise and old-fashioned hard work has not gone away.

So believe me when I say my optimism about Britain is brighter than ever.

My ambition knows no limits, because I can see that provided that we make the right choices now, stability is a crucial foundation on which all of 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.

Reeves says she 'won't turn blind eye to fraudsters', as she confirms Covid corruption commissioner being appointed

Reeves gets a round of applause for saying she has cancelled the government contract for a VIP helicopter ordered by Rishi Sunak.

And she delivers the passage about the Covid corruption commissioner. (See 10.35am.) She says:

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 line their own pockets. I won’t let them get away with that. That money belongs in our police, it belongs in our health service, and it belongs in our schools.

This gets perhaps the loudest round of applause so far.

Reeves says cutting winter fuel payments was 'right decision in circumstances we inherited'

Reeves is now restating the assessment of the public finances, and the £22bn black hole in the current spending budget for this year, that she outline to parliament in July.

When she took office, she was told that failure to act quickly would undermine the UK’s fiscal position, “with implications for public debt, mortgages and prices”.

She says she decided to means-test the winter fuel payments.

I know that not everyone in this hall or in the country will agree with every decision that I make. I will not duck those decisions, not for political expediency, not for personal advantage.

But she says, given the £22bn black hole, and the fact the triple lock will lead to the state pension rising by an estimated £1,700 over the course of this parliament, she judged cutting the winter fuel payment “the right decision in the circumstances that we inherited”.

Rachel Reeves. Photograph: Phil Noble/Reuters