Rachel Reeves broke down in tears in front of Parliament’s cameras this afternoon after facing scrutiny over the government’s welfare bill.
The Chancellor wiped tears from her face during Prime Minister’s Questions as Keir Starmer failed to confirm she would still be in her job at the next election.
Her sister, Labour Party chair Ellie Reeves, was later seen holding her hand as they left the chamber together at the end of the session.
A Treasury spokesperson told Metro she was dealing with ‘a personal matter’, adding it was something ‘we are not going to get into’.
They added: ‘The Chancellor will be working out of Downing Street this afternoon.’
At a briefing after PMQs, a Downing Street spokesperson said the Chancellor was ‘going nowhere’, arguing the PM had backed her several times before and did not need to explicitly repeat his support.
Reports suggested Reeves had been involved in an altercation with Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle shortly before Prime Minister’s Questions.
A spokeswoman for the Speaker said: ‘No comment.’
Asked why Sir Keir did not confirm in the Commons that he still had faith in Reeves, the Prime Minister’s press secretary told reporters: ‘He has done so repeatedly.
‘The Chancellor is going nowhere. She has the Prime Minister’s full backing.
‘He has said it plenty of times, he doesn’t need to repeat it every time the Leader of the Opposition speculates about Labour politicians.’
Asked whether the Prime Minister still had confidence in Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, the press secretary said: ‘Yes.’
Reeves is facing a serious economic dilemma after a bill aiming to bring down the UK’s welfare bill was gutted before being voted through yesterday evening.
As a result, billions of pounds in savings that might have eased the Chancellor’s job balancing the books will no longer happen.
Changes to Universal Credit were included in the final bill that passed its second reading, but changes to the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) – where most of the savings were set to come from – were scrapped.
Instead, alterations to the disability benefit will come from a review by Work and Pensions minister Stephen Timms which is set to be published next autumn.
As that review will involve close work with disability groups, it’s expected the impact on Pip will be considerably less significant than the initial plans.
