'Working people are not yet feeling progress,' admits Rachel Reeves ahead of spending review
10 June 2025, 11:04 | Updated: 10 June 2025, 11:16
Rachel Reeves has acknowledged that not enough people are feeling the progress Labour has made and said her spending review will be about “making working people better off”.
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Speaking at the GMB Union Congress in Brighton, the Chancellor said the government was “making progress”.
“I know that not enough working people are yet feeling that progress, and that’s what tomorrow’s Spending Review is all about – making working people better off, investing in our security, investing in our health, investing in our economy."
She added: “This government is going for growth because that is the best way to create jobs, boost wages, lift people out of poverty, and sustainably fund our schools and our hospitals and all the public services we rely on.
“And we’re doing things differently, because unlike the Tories, I don’t think that the only good thing that a government can do is get out of the way.”
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The comments come as Ms Reeves has committed £16.7 billion to nuclear power projects as the country shifts away from fossil fuels.
The Chancellor signed off on £14.2 billion of investment to build the new Sizewell C nuclear plant in Suffolk, while Rolls-Royce has been named as the preferred bidder to build small modular reactors (SMRs) in a programme backed by £2.5 billion of taxpayers’ cash.
Ms Reeves will use Wednesday’s spending review to allocate tens of billions of funding for major infrastructure projects over the rest of the decade.
Officials hope SMRs will be cheaper and quicker to build than traditional power plants, and projects could be connected to the grid by the mid-2030s.
Ms Reeves said: “The UK is back where it belongs, taking the lead in the technologies of tomorrow with Rolls-Royce SMR as the preferred partner for this journey.”
Speaking at the GMB union’s congress, she said: “This Labour government is investing in the biggest rollout of nuclear power in a generation.”
The SMR project could support up to 3,000 new skilled jobs and power the equivalent of around three million homes, with a first site expected to be allocated later this year by state-owned Great British Energy – Nuclear.
Tuesday’s announcement of Rolls-Royce as the preferred bidder came after the Government confirmed financial support for Sizewell C.
Ms Reeves said: “This government is giving our full backing to the Sizewell C nuclear plant, providing £14.2 billion of additional funding for the first directly state-funded nuclear power station since 1988.”
