Downing Street has said Chancellor Rachel Reeves is “going nowhere” after Sir Keir Starmer was asked to guarantee that she would keep her job, at Prime Minister’s Questions.
Reeves was visibly upset from the beginning of the session as Kemi Badenoch laid into the PM’s latest U-turn on welfare reform – which potentially blows a hole in the chancellor’s Budget plans.
The Tory leader said the chancellor would now be forced to put up taxes “to pay for his incompetence” and asked Sir Keir if Reeves would still be chancellor at the next election.
The PM refused to rule out future tax rises and did not respond to the question about whether Reeves would keep her job, saying Badenoch “certainly won’t”.
The Tory leader said: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
The prime minister’s press secretary was quick to stress that Reeves had the PM’s “full backing” in a briefing to journalists following the half hour session.
Asked why Sir Keir did not confirm in the Commons that he still had faith in his chancellor, she said: “He has done so repeatedly.
“The chancellor is going nowhere. She has the prime minister’s full backing.”
Asked whether Sir Keir still had confidence in Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, who did not join her colleagues on the front bench for PMQs, the PM’s press secretary said: “Yes.”
Sir Keir was forced on Tuesday night to scrap key parts of the government’s welfare reform legislation at the last minute to head off a backbench rebellion.
The move potentially wipes out savings Reeves was counting on to meet her goal of funding day-to-day spending through tax receipts.
At PMQs, Badenoch said the chancellor, who was sitting next to Sir Keir on the government front bench, “looks absolutely miserable”.
She told the PM: “Labour MPs are going on the record saying that the chancellor is toast, and the reality is that she is a human shield for his incompetence.”
Reeves was seen to wipe away tears during the exchanges. Asked why she had been upset, her spokesman said: “It’s a personal matter, which – as you would expect – we are not going to get into.”
As Reeves left PMQs her sister Ellie Reeves, who is also a Labour MP, took her hand in an apparent show of support.
Following PMQs, Badenoch’s spokesperson said a “personal matter doesn’t really clear it up” as “you normally tell people what the personal matter is”.
Shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick went further than the Tory leader in an X video, saying the chancellor’s career was now dead after an “embarrassing” U-turn and it was time for her to go.
But he later added: “I obviously hope that Rachel Reeves’s personal matter is resolved. It’s never nice to see someone upset. The PM had a chance to support her at PMQs but threw her under the bus.”
He said borrowing costs were soaring and the pound plummeting because “the market has lost confidence in the government’s ability to control spending”.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s Westminster leader, said: “Like almost all MPs I don’t know why the Chancellor was upset in the chamber today, but I do hope she is okay and back to her duties this afternoon.
“Seeing another person in distress is always very difficult, and we are wishing her well.”
During PMQs, when challenged by Badenoch to rule out tax rises, Sir Keir said: “No prime minister or chancellor ever stands at the despatch box and writes budgets in the future.”
He insisted the welfare reform bill would get more people back into work and blamed Tory “stagnation” for welfare problems.
Meanwhile, many colleagues and allies of Reeves in parliament are blaming an altercation with the Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle for upsetting her.
Several have accused him of having been abrupt with the chancellor in a meeting before PMQs.
It is thought to have been about an interaction they had during Treasury questions on Tuesday in which Sir Lindsay asked her to give shorter answers.
However, no-one who the BBC has spoken to is claiming to have witnessed the interaction personally.
The chancellor’s team have declined to comment. The Speaker’s office has been approached for comment.
