Reeves appears tearful during PMQs in the House of Commons.
By Democrat reporter
Downing Street has said Rachel Reeves has the full backing of the prime minister after the chancellor made a tearful appearance in the House of Commons.
Sir Keir Starmer refused to say whether Reeves would remain in her job until the next election at Prime Minister’s Questions, during which the chancellor, who was sat by his side on the front bench, was visibly upset.
Afterwards, Number 10 said Reeves was “going nowhere”, while her spokesperson said she had been dealing with a “personal matter”.
But the extraordinary Commons scenes appeared to unsettle the financial markets, with the pound falling against major currencies and the cost of government borrowing rising.
At a highly charged PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch laid into the government’s latest U-turn on welfare reform – which potentially blows a hole in Reeves’ Budget plans.
She said the chancellor would now be forced to put up taxes “to pay for his incompetence” and asked if she would still be chancellor at the next election.
She said the chancellor “looks absolutely miserable”.
And 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.”
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 creating the problems it was trying to fix.
He ignored Badenoch’s question about the chancellor’s future but his press secretary told journalists afterwards that Reeves had his “full backing” and was “going nowhere”.
It come after Sir Keir was forced 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.
Reeves was seen to wipe away tears during the PMQs 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.
Top of page picture: A group of disabled young people and carers at the ASdult Training Centre in Dumbarton. It’s people like them who would have suffered had the Labour welfare reforms gone through.