Rachel Reeves: Why is she suddenly in a rush, asks Laura Kuenssberg

Rachel Reeves seems to have quickened her pace recently. Although she might dislike the comparison, her rhetoric in recent weeks has sounded more like a Conservative chancellor. She wants to remove barriers to business and make it harder for environmental groups to block large developments. She is slowing down plans to make life more expensive for wealthy non-doms, and is expected to approve new airport runways and cut welfare.

This is a far cry from Reeves' position during the October budget, when she sharply raised taxes, increased public spending, and repeatedly reminded people how bad the economy was and the legendary £22 billion black hole she claimed the Conservatives had left. So, why the shift?

Treasury insiders say that almost immediately after the budget, she began discussions with officials and pushed for more ideas to boost economic growth. After all, she and Sir Keir Starmer have consistently stressed that growth is their top priority. Her plans for a major speech next Wednesday—expected to unveil more measures to cut planning rules and announce a new runway at Heathrow in London—were in the works even then, and she has since faced increased pressure to respond to loud calls from business.

A City source told me: “Labour did a very good job of masquerading as pro-business before [the budget]. Now nobody would say they are pro-business.” The metrics for how the government is performing on their self-declared top priority—making Britain more prosperous—are mixed at best and bleak at worst. We’ve experienced market volatility and received warnings about an impending “doom loop.”

As one FTSE 100 chief executive told me: “There has been nervousness all year, and market sentiment has clearly deteriorated, with a lack of positive encouragement.” A union leader told me that they’ve also had “robust arguments” with the party about how best to boost the economy and “strong conversations” about using public funds to support growth. “The bottom line is that growth is sluggish—they need massive investment,” they said. Despite wage increases, any pollster will tell you that large swathes of voters feel squeezed and are doing badly.

Inside Number 11, some believe this nervousness has been helpful as it has restored “a sense of urgency and brought the focus back to the Treasury.” Sources say this has allowed Reeves to make stronger arguments to her colleagues for things like another runway at Heathrow. Others suggest that Reeves’ new moves reflect the fact that she and the rest of the cabinet are no longer novices and have settled into their roles. A senior source told me that the “need to accelerate is now much clearer.” Another source said that “market volatility has brought that frustration to the fore—we’ve been talking about growth for so long… I think it’s starting to accelerate.”

But hasn’t Starmer’s team been telling us hundreds of times from the opposition benches that they were ready to go from day one? The evidence of their first few months in office suggests that this wasn’t the case, and that the masterplan we were told existed was not real. A Whitehall source said, “They wasted time because the team preparing for government wasn’t really ready for government—they had an opportunity to come in and show their strength, but they messed it up,” leading to a “scattergun approach.” Now, they say, “this is a course correction,” a response to the business community’s loud complaints and the arrival of the “White House orange man.”

A senior Labour MP said the gear change has not been easy. “The levers you pull aren’t simply connected to something—the Treasury has very little control over economic growth.” If you are a little confused by this sudden embrace of positivity and love of risky business, that’s understandable. Overall, the government has been taxing, spending, and borrowing heavily, despite saying they wanted to focus on growing the economy. They now say they want to sweep away rules—but at the same time, they are increasing regulation for employers to give workers more rights, regulating landlords, and even want to regulate football. On green energy, plans for a national energy company are a massive state intervention.

To help growth, ministers will point to changes in planning, or their plans to attract big AI companies, though even Sir Paul McCartney has pointed out this isn’t easy. None of the government's measures can be neatly organized into a coherent set of ideas. The big picture is stark. The national debt is huge, and taxes are high. Growth is sluggish. Ministers are scrambling to find places to cut budgets. Inside government, there is a belief that the good news of wage growth and a tolerable level of inflation has been under-acknowledged. Tomorrow in our studio, and in Reeves’ big speech on Wednesday, she will try to give you the impression that she is full of optimism and eager to boost the economy so that it creates jobs, fills government coffers, and ultimately gives voters a long overdue good feeling.

Yet, however optimistic she is, one former Labour minister is wondering: “How long will it take for these changes to trickle down to the households in my constituency, where people live in overcrowded rented homes and can’t afford the supermarket?” The pressure is on. One union leader called it a “knees-up moment.” Change takes time, and the economy may need patience—but politics is not always prepared to wait.