Reeves is forced to correct parliamentary records after misquoting key figures
Rachel Reeves was forced to correct official parliamentary records after giving MPs and peers inaccurate figures on unemployment and flagship pension reforms, which raised questions about her orders on economic details.
The Ministry of Finance confirmed that Hansard was a record of parliamentary litigation and was amended at the committee hearing by the Prime Minister.
Reeves told MPs in an exchange that the £42.5 billion local government pension scheme is managed by “96 different administrative authorities” and she intends to cut it to “eight pools” after the reforms to improve investment and efficiency. Officials later admitted that the real number was 86 authorities and planned to merge into six pools.
During the appearance before the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, she also misled labor market data, saying: “20% of working-age people are economically inactive and our unemployment rate is just over 4%. The Ministry of Finance clarified that the Office of National Statistics (ONS) set economic inactivity at 21% and the unemployment rate at 4.7%.
These mistakes were first highlighted in Sunday’s emails, a sensitive moment when Reeves faced pressure on her first fall budget. Economists warn that she may need to raise as much as £50 billion to fill a loophole in public finances, a gap critic believes that policies that have weakened business confidence and investment have widened it.
Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith accused Reeves of “shocking grasp of details.” “When she writes such a big check with taxpayer’s money, there’s no time to relax your numbers,” he said.
This is not the first time that it has been forced to publicly correct. In February, she was forced to revise comments on wage growth, claiming that “we have grown year-on-year since the election after inflation grew at the fastest pace”. Finance officials later clarified that real wage growth reached the fastest pace in three years, rather than a record.
Last year, Reeves also faced scrutiny of over-the-top resume elements. She claimed to have worked as an economist at the Bank of Scotland, a role the lender said, and exaggerated her time at the Bank of England.
Repeated slips and falls began to raise criticism of her preparation for the introduction to the Treasury. Reeves called herself the first female prime minister in the UK, whose mission was to restore fiscal credibility, carefully scrutinized accuracy and authority when fiscal clearance and high expectations were passed.
It’s precisely within a few weeks of the fall budget being offered in Reeves. With the government’s climbing and slow growth interest payments, there is growing speculation about how she intends to balance books.
She has ruled out raising income tax, national insurance or VAT, but the risk of options left on the table, including potential changes to estate tax and capital gains tax, has intensified the controversy.
Currently, Reeves is under pressure not only to add up the numbers, but to convince parliament and the market to have a firm grasp of them first.
The Ministry of Finance declined to comment further.
