Why is she suddenly in a rush, asks Laura Kuenssberg | Global News Avenue

Rachel Reeves was suddenly in a hurry.

She hates the comparison, but the way she’s spoken in recent weeks has sounded more like a Conservative chancellor.

She wants to remove business barriers and make it harder for green groups to block big developments. She is relaxing plans to make life more expensive for wealthy non-residents, is expected to approve new airport runways and cut benefits.

That doesn’t sound much like Reeves’ October budget, in which she raised huge taxes, increased spending on public services and reminded us time and time again just how deeply in trouble the economy is, and what she claimed was a conservative How to do this. Leaving behind the legendary £22 billion black hole.

So why switch focus?

Treasury insiders say privately that almost as soon as the budget was announced, she sat down to negotiate with officials to push for more ideas to boost economic growth. After all, she and Sir Keir Starmer have always said growth is their priority.

Plans for her big speech next Wednesday – in which she is expected to unveil more changes to slash planning rules and announce a new runway at London’s Heathrow Airport – had been hatched and have since , she only felt more pressure to respond to these calls. business.

One city source told me: “Labour did a good job of pretending to be pro-business before the Budget. No one would say they are pro-business now.”

Ouch!

Indicators measuring how well the government is doing on its purported priority – making Britain more prosperous – are patchy at best and bleak at worst. Markets are experiencing volatility and warnings of a “doomsday cycle.”

As one FTSE CEO told me: “People are nervous this year, the mood has definitely gotten worse and there’s been a lack of positive drumbeat.”

One union leader told me there was also “bargaining” between unions, with both sides having “intense conversations” about the best way to move the economy forward and the best way to use public money to support growth. “The bottom line is growth is weak – they need massive investment,” they said.

Despite rising wages, any pollster will tell you that large numbers of voters feel the pinch and are suffering.

In No 11 it was argued that this tension was helpful as it restored “a sense of urgency and put the focus back on the Treasury”.

Sources said this allowed Reeves to make stronger arguments to colleagues on issues such as another runway at Heathrow.

Others also said Reeves’ new moves reflected that she and other Cabinet members were no longer apprentices but had settled into their roles.

“The need to move quickly is even clearer,” one senior source told me. “The volatility in the market has brought that frustration to the fore – we’ve been talking about growth for a long time… I think it’s starting to get the rocket booster going in this situation,” another person said.

But haven’t Starmer’s tribe told you and me hundreds of times that they are ready to get going? The evidence from their first months in government shows that this is not entirely true, and that the master plan we are told exists is simply not true.

One Whitehall source said: “They wasted time because the teams that were preparing for the government were not really preparing for the government – ​​they had an opportunity to come in and show their strength and they blew it”, leading to “a twist.” practices”.

Now, they say, “it’s a correction,” in response to the corporate world screaming at them and the arrival of “Orange Man in the White House.”

A senior Labor MP said the change of tack would not be easy. “The levers you pull are not just about something – the dead hand of the Treasury cannot simply control economic growth.”

You’d be forgiven if this sudden surge of positivity and love for the swashbuckling business left you feeling a little confused.

Broadly speaking, governments have taxed, spent and borrowed heavily, even as they say they want to focus on growing the economy.

Now they want to scrap the rules, they say, but at the same time they are tightening regulations on employers, giving workers more rights and, for landlords, even wanting to regulate football. When it comes to green energy, Tenaga’s plan is a huge state intervention.

To help drive growth, ministers will point to changes in plans, or their plans to attract big AI companies, though none other than Sir Paul McCartney Notes It’s far from simple.

No government measures can be neatly organized into a coherent set of ideas.

The big picture is tough. The country has huge debt and huge taxes. Growth is negligible. Ministers are scrambling to find places to squeeze budgets.

In government, it is felt that the good news about wage growth and tolerable levels of inflation has not been fully appreciated. In our studios tomorrow and in her big speech Wednesday, Reeves will try to give the impression that she is full of optimism and eager to get the economy moving to create jobs, fill the government’s tax coffers and, ultimately, voters A long-lost feel-good factor may be regained.

However, however optimistic she may be, the former Labor minister wonders: “How long will it take for change to trickle down to the doorsteps of my constituency, where people live in crowded rented flats and can’t afford a supermarket?”

The pressure is on. One union leader described it as a “finger-crossing moment behind the back”. Change takes time, and economics may require patience, but politics are not always prepared to wait.

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