Rachel Reeves is set to unveil her first budget as chancellor next week, which she said will involve ‘tough decisions’ to fill a £22 billion black hole in the nation’s finances.
Reeves became the UK’s first female chancellor after Labour won the General Election in July 2024.
She previously served in Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet as shadow chancellor from May 2021 until July.
As chancellor, Reeves has already overseen the scrapping of the winter fuel allowance for pensioners not on certain benefits, which means more than 9 million pensioners will lose out on the annual payment of between £200 and £300 a year.
It is understood that Reeves is now looking to raise up to £40 billion in tax increases and spending cuts in this month’s budget, as the government seeks to avoid a return to austerity.
Here’s everything you need to know about Reeves.
Born on February 13 1979 in Lewisham, south east London. Reeves is the daughter of primary school teachers Graham and Sally.
She attended the state school Cator Park school for Girls in Bromley, where she studied maths, further maths, economics and politics at A-level.
It was in sixth form when Reeves joined the Labour party, a year before the 1997 general election which saw Labour sweep to power in a landslide victory under Sir Tony Blair.
The future chancellor went on to become the third person ever from the school to go to Oxford, where she studied philosophy, politics and economics at New College.
After completing an undergraduate degree at Oxford and a masters degree at the London School of Economics, Reeves joined the Bank of England’s graduate scheme in the same cohort as former Health Secretary Matt Hancock.
The scheme took Reeves to Washington, where she worked analysing the US economy at the British embassy.
She then worked at the banking and insurance company HBOS at its headquarters in Halifax, during which the firm endured the 2008 financial crash.
Reeves entered Parliament in 2010, aged only 31, representing the constituency Leeds West (which became Leeds West and Pudsey for the 2024 general election).
She garnered attention with her rapid appointment to the post of shadow chief secretary to the Treasury after just 18 months in the House of Commons.
Reeves was later promoted to shadow work and pensions secretary in Ed Miliband’s Labour Party in 2013.
Following the 2015 general election, Reeves spent the entirety of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership on the backbenches, but served as chairwoman of the Business and Trade Select Committee from 2017 until her return to the shadow cabinet in 2020.
Sir Keir offered her the position of shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster April 2020, in which she stood opposite Michael Gove at the despatch box.
A year later, after disappointing local election results for Labour, Sir Keir replaced the then shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds with Reeves in May 2021.
As shadow chancellor, Reeves chartered a cautious and steady course, rebuilding relationships between Labour and business leaders and leading Labour’s criticisms of Liz Truss’ mini-budget and the economic policies of successive conservative chancellors.
Ellie Reeves, Member of Parliament for Lewisham West and East Dulwich since 2017, is the chancellor’s younger sister.
Born in 1980, Ellie Reeves became a member of and campaign for Labour at the same time as her sister.
She also followed in her sister’s footsteps and went to Oxford.
Ellie Reeves is married to Labour peer Lord Cryer, who served as an MP for Leyton and Wanstead from 2010 to 2024.
The youngest Reeves served as shadow solicitor general and shadow minister for prisons and probation, before being appointed as chair of the Labour Party following Labour’s general election win.
Rachel Reeves is married to senior civil servant Nicholas Joicey, who she met while working in Washington.
Joicey has been serving as the second Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since July 2023, for which government records say he earns £110,000 a year.
At the time of his appointment to that role, the conservative Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey described him as ‘highly experienced public servant’ with a ‘wealth of knowledge from across government.’
Prior to his current role, Joicey held the position of the Director General, Economic and Domestic Secretariat at the Cabinet Office from September 2022 to July 2023, after working in a string of civil service roles over the past decade.
Reeves and Joicey have two children together.
She announced she was pregnant with their first child in September 2012 and later gave birth to a daughter called Anna.
Three years later, Reeves and Joicey had a second child, a son named Harold, who was born in 2015.
Reeves is regularly described in the media as being a chess champion while at school.
However, according to Guido Fawkes, she has never actually won a chess tournament.
Reeves competed in the British Under 14s championship in 1993 and came joint 26th.
In previous years she came 29th in the Under 13s Championship and was 19th place in the Under 12s in 1990.
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