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Rachel Reeves · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: In the long history of the British government, only one
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: woman has served as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in effect
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: the Secretary of the Treasury of the British government. That
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: woman is Rachel Reeves. Had a chance at Davos recently
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: to sit down with Rachel Reeves and talk about her
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: role as Chancellor of the Exchequer and the British economy.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: In your position, Chancellor of the Exchequer, you're the equivalent
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: of the United States or the Secretary of Treasury. Yes,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: but also the head of the officer management and budget.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Do you not prepare the budget for the government? I do.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: I do also prepare the budget.
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: We have an independent forecaster who provides the forecast and
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: costs the policies that we put forward. But what is
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: in the budget is my choice, the policies that I
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: put forward, and we have an annual budget. I delivered
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: the last of my budgets in November last year in England.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Do you have to balance the budget or you can
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: borrow money?
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: You can borrow money, but we're reducing that. I don't
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: think that it is a good fiscal or economic policy
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: to just constantly borrow, especially to pay for day to
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: day spending, and for the last few years, like many
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: countries including the US, we've been running a budget deficit
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: of around five percent of GDP. We are now bringing
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: that down steadily. It will be just over four percent
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I think this year, then falling to about three and
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: a half percent. We've got the fastest rate of fiscal
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: consolidation going on in the UK of any country in
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: the G seven. Our debt burden as a share of
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: GDP is not too far of one hundred percent. I
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: want to bring that down. I also want to bring
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: down the cost of servicing that debt because at the moment,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: one in ten pounds of everything government spends is actually
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: on debt interest and so reducing government borrowing costs, which
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: we managed to achieve last year, and reducing the debt
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: burden as a share of GDP are two important priorities
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: for me.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: In the budget you've proposed You propose a tax increase?
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: Is that very popular to doing? Will you get it approved?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Because you control the parliament.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: We do have a big majority in Parliament. When I
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: became chancellor, I inherited a bit of a mess, A
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: bit of a mess fiscally and in terms of economic performance.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: And the cost of living, and the previous government had
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: made a number of spending commitments without saying where the
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: money was going to come from, and what is called
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: the reserve, which is set aside for emergencies, had been
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: spent three or four times over just three months into
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: the financial year.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I had to put that right.
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: That required a number of adjustments, both on spending and
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: indeed on tax. When you come in as a business
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: leader and you're taking on a business that has not
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: been working well, that is not living within its means,
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: does not have a clear.
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: Plan, you have to sort it out.
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: And I had to fix that mess now on being
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: able to pursue my plans, my plans for growth and
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: to ease the cost of living challenges.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: But that did.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Require quite a big repair job to put the public
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: finances on a solid footing.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Again, as we look.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: In this calendar year, do you think the UK will
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: grow at two or three percent or so? What kind
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of projections are you for GDP growth?
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  Speaker 3: Real GDP growth expected to be around one and a
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: half percent. Obviously nominal all that would be around three
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: and a half percent a year. I want growth to
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: be faster than that. Last year. I think we'll come
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: out as the second fastest growing economy in the G
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: seven when all the numbers are totted up. But none
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: of the economies in the G seven are growing as
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: fast as we could, as fast as I think our
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: potential is. And that's why as a government, growth is
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: our number one priority for the Prime Minister Kirstarma and myself,
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: and our industrial strategy backing sectors like AI and tech,
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: clean energy, life sciences and our defense sectors focus on
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: stability to bring down interest rates and inflation. Investment both
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: public and private in infrastructure, including ambitious plans for Oxford
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: and Bridge and also in the North of England, and
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: then deregulation, reforming our planning system to make it easier
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: to get things done in Britain. I think we'll start
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: seeing the benefits of that payoff this year now.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Many wealthy people who are not British by birth, who
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: have moved to England in recent years, maybe to avoid
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: their local countries taxes, have found that recently the non
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: dom taxes have increased dramatically in the UK and they
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: have left the UK. Has that been a problem having
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: wealthy people leave the UK or it's not a big problem.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: We want Britain to be a magnet for wealth and
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: talent entrepreneurs from around the world. We did have quite
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: an anachronistic system that if your father was born abroad
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: you could claim a non domicile for tax purpose in
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: the UK. That wasn't fair. It's not a rule that
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: any other country has, so the previous government and now
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: this government have got rid of that. We also made
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: some changes around trusts and inheritance tax, although in the
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: budget just in November we relaxed some of those rules
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: so that for a flat fee you could take trusts
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: out of your inheritance tax. So we have listened to
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: feedback from wealthy individuals who perhaps want to make Britain
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: that home, or have already made at Britain their home.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: We've also introduced a very generous scheme for people coming
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: to the UK wanting to bring foreign income and gains
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: to the UK. Previously they were taxed at normal rates
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: of income tax. We have reduced that to try and
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: encourage people to bring not just themselves and their talent,
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: but their wealth to the UK. Britain is an open
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: trading economy and we have to be to be successful.
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  Speaker 3: Open to business, open to investment, open to trade, and
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: open to talents.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Now, the world has seen enormous amounts of growth in
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: the technology space, particularly AI, and you've mentioned quantum is
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: also coming along. But as you look back over the
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: last couple of years, if you grow up in the
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: UK or the EU, you don't really relied to get
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: through the day on European built technologies. The technologies that
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: are often the ones that people use are built in
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the United States. Why do you think that the entrepreneurs
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: in the UK and the EU haven't yet built technologies
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: that the whole world says we need that technology, We
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: need to have Facebook or our Google product or something
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: like that. Is there any inherent reason you think it
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: is or just been bad luck for the last X
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: number of years.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: Well, I think as a really good challenge, and your
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: amazing tech companies like Google and Facebook and Apple, etc.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: We don't have one of those in the UK or
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: indeed in Europe. Were very good adopting new technologies in
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: the US and that spurs productivity growth, which is beginning
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: to pick up now in the UK. But we've also
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: got some really exciting businesses on the frontier of new
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: technologies like quantum and digital processing. So I think there
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: are some exciting opportunities and one of the things that
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: we want to do with Oxford Cambridge is to create
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: a big link between those two universities. There's sixty or
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: seventy miles apart, but there's no direct train link between them.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: There are some great towns and cities on that route
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  Speaker 3: between those two cities. We want to bring them together
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  Speaker 3: and create our version, a British version of Silicon Valley
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: in the UK, where we can really capture the creativity
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and the imagination of British founders and help them grow
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: their businesses here. One of the challenges they've had in
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: the UK so loads of startups, but as they scale
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: up the drift towards America. There are forms we're making,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: particularly pension reforms, to unlock long term patient capital, to
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: back venture capital, to back private equity in the UK
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: that is really exciting. We'll keep more of those businesses here.
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  Speaker 3: We're putting a load of tax incentives as well in
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  Speaker 3: the budget to back founders and entrepreneurs, and we're increasing
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: the tax incentives to stay listed in the UK. So
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: we're doing some exciting things and I do think that
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: that will reap dividends too.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Now in the United States, there's been a well publicized
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: feud between the President of the United States and the
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, and in a fact
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that the President is saying, I should have more influence
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: on what interest rates are. Would it ever occur to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the Chancellor of the ex checker to tell the head
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of the Bank of England lower interest rates or you
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: just don't do that in this country.
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  Speaker 3: No. Since nineteen ninety seven, actually the previous Labor Chancellor,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: Gordon Brown, granted operational independence to the Bank of England.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: It's Parliament that sets the inflation target that's two percent
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: for the UK, and then the bank have the tools
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: of interest rates to meet that target. Now you know,
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: I've worked at the Bank of England. I have huge
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: respect for that institution and believe that the way that
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: we have good policy making is to take the politics
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: out of interest rate decisions. And I think that serves
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: the UK economy well. We set fiscal policy as a
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: government and then the Bank of England set monetary policy.
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  Speaker 3: And I think that operational independence for central banks is
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  Speaker 3: one of the things that preserves stability and gives confidence
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  Speaker 3: to people to invest.
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  Speaker 1: Now ten former Chancellors of the Exchequer became Prime Minister,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: including Winston Churchill among others. So if you ever thought
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: about the possibility that you might follow in their path
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  Speaker 1: and be the first woman to be Chancellor of the
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  Speaker 1: Exchecker and then Prime Minister.
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  Speaker 3: I know that politicians often say I don't want to
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: do that job, but I really don't want to do
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  Speaker 3: that job. The job that I've always wanted to do
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  Speaker 3: in politics is to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Before
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I became an MP, I worked in banking and financial services.
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  Speaker 3: Has started my career as an economist at the Bank
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: of England and for me, being Chancellor is my absolute
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: dream job and it's the only job I want in politics.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk a bit about your background. Where did you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: grow up?
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  Speaker 3: I grew up in Lewisham in southeast London. My mum
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: and dad were primary school teachers. I went to my
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: local state school and it was when I was at
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: school that I got involved in politics, and the reason
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: being when I was at secondary school, our sixth form
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: you know where we did, you know our final exams
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: was a couple of prefabricated huts in the playground, which
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: was basically freezing cold in the winter or baking hot
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: in the summer. Our school library was turned into a
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: classroom because there were more students than there was space,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: and there were never enough textbooks to go around. And
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: I felt very strongly that the governments that we had
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: then in the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties in the UK,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: conservative governments didn't care very much about schools like mine,
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: the community in which I grew up, and I wanted
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: to do something about it. And at the time, I'm
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: the leader of the Labor Party. The opposition party at
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: the time was Tony Blair, and I heard him say
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: that his three priorities were education, education, education, and that
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: really resonated with me because I believe that talent is
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: equally distributed, but opportunity isn't. But education can give everybody
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: the opportunities that they.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Deserve to fulfill their potential.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: And so that's why I got involved in politics and
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: why I got involved in the Labor Party.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: And you go to college.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: I was the third person at my school to go
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: to Oxford University. It wasn't a traditional route for people
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: from my school to go to university at all. Let
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: alone to a university like Oxford. But I remember two
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: years before I applied to go to Oxford, my head
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: teacher at school giving an assembly and said, today two
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: girls from our school are in Oxford doing an interview
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: to go to the universe there and we should all
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: keep our fingers crossed for them all day because it
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: would be an amazing achievement for our school. And I thought, wow,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I've never thought about something like that, but I'm one
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: of the top performing girls in my year. Perhaps in
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: a couple of years time that might be something I
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: could do. And it just so deceived in my mind
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: that that was a possibility for someone like me and
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: for a girl from the school I was at. And
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: so two years later I did put in my application
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: and I got a place to read philosophy, politics and
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: economics at Oxford University, and later I went on to
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: do a master's degree in economics at the London School
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: of Economics. So I've been very blessed to have a
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: very good education from some of the best universities and
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: colleges in the UK.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: After you got that education, did you sort of take
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a job at the Bank of England? Is that what
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you did.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, my macroeconomics tutor at Oxford. He said that
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: the Bank of England was a finishing school for economists
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: and I thought, yeah, that sounds like what I would
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: like to do. And so I had an offer from
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: an investment bank, and I had an offer from the
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: Bank of England, and I chose the Bank of England
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: because I wanted to be a proper economist and also
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: I've always strongly believed in public service, and so we're
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: working for the Bank of England. Was a great job
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: for me as my first job after university.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And how long were you there?
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I was there for just under six years. In fact,
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: actually whilst I was there as well, I had a
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: brief succonment to Washington, where I worked at the British
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Embassy as the second Economic Secretary, and that was in
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: two thousand and two, two thousand and three, so again
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: a time of huge volatility in the world, not long
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: after nine to eleven when the UK and US went
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: to war in Iraq, and so it was a fascinating
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: time to be in Washington and I was reporting back
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: to the UK Treasury and to the Bank and liaising
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: with the US economic team.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Well, so after you finished that tour of duty, you
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: ultimately decided to run for parliament.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Yes, I went and worked in the private sector for
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: a bit. I worked for Halifax Bank of Scotland, which
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: is now part of Lloyd's Banking Group. I worked in
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: retail banking, which is what took me to Leeds where
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I'm now a Member of Parliament.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: But did you win the first time you ran?
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: No?
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: No, No, it was the third time actually that I ran.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: I ran in what is traditionally a safe Conservative seat
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: in the south of England, in Bromley, which is close
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: to where I grew up. But then I got this
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: job up in Yorkshire, moved up there, a safer seat
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: became available and I stood there.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we after you ran the first time he
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: didn't win, and the second time he didn't win, you
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: didn't say maybe politics is not for me.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: No.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: The first time I stood it was sort of like
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: it was like a for me. It was the first
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: time I had done anything publicly political.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: I'd always been along to my local branch meetings of
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: my party, gone along to Labor Party conference, but I'd
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: never had a sort of public platform for my politics.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: And I thought, well, I'll give it a go. I'll
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: see what it's like and see if it's something that
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: I would like to do in the longer term. So
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: I was very I was young when I first died
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: for parliament. I think I was about twenty six. And
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: then the following year, sadly the MPI stood against he
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: died suddenly and so there was a by election, and
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: so I stood again for my party. But it was
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: twenty ten that I first got elected to parliament.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: So it was two hundred and fifty years ago that
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: my country issued a declaration of independence and said to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: your country, we're breaking away. Do you think if the
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: British government had said, look forget the taxes were imposing,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: let's be friends, the UK would still be part of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the United States, or the US would be still part
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: of the UK. And would that make the world a
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: better place? Or you're happy with what happened.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to go back to two hundred and
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: fifty he is and try and rewrite that period of history.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: But I am really proud that the strong ties, the
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: cultural ties, the family ties, the business ties, the military
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: and intelligence ties between our country. There's no greater partnership
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: in the world than that between the UK UK and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: the US, and that's been true under different prime ministers,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: different presidents. We've got a very strong relationship between my
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Prime Minister Kirstama and your President Donald Trump. I think
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: that serves both of our countries well. Doesn't mean always
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: going to agree on everything, and that's the thing about
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: the closest of friends. You don't always have to agree
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: on everything. You can exchange views and that is a
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: healthy thing to do, but recognizing that you know what
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: binds us together is so much stronger.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: Now in the United States, we often have a thing
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: called c Span, and on C SPAN we often show
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: the Prime Minister's I guess the debates are.
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: Prime Minister's questions questions Uh huh.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: And I've always wondered does a prime minister really know
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the answers to those questions?
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: So Prime Minister's Questions is a big weekly event in
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: our Parliament and every week, for half an hour thirty
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: five minutes, the Prime Minister takes six questions from the
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: leader of the opposition, two questions from the third party,
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: the Liberal Democrats, and then questions from assortment of backbench
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: MPs on both sides, and some of the questions. The
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Prime Minister will have an idea what the MP is
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: going to ask because it's one of his own MPs
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: the leader of the opposition, and the opposition MP's no idea,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: and so the Prime Minister has to be really well prepared.
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: You can sort of have a guess of what the
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: leader of the Opposition is going to go on. We
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: have got a pretty adversarial political set up in the
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: UK in the House of Commons, you've got the Green
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: benches on both sides, you've got big table in the middle,
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: and you are two sword lengths apart from the opposition.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: We don't have swords with us in Parliament. But the
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: idea is, you know, you spar with words, not with
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: not with physical weapons. And it does get quite heated
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: the exchanges.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: In the US we have an aging population and without
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: immigration very much now our population is aging much more
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: than it has in the past. Does the UK have
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: an aging population issue as well or not?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Yes, we do. I don't think it is stark as
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: in some other countries. I think that though immigration policy
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: it is a challenge for all Western countries to get
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: that balance right. And in Britain we are building an
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: immigration system and a visa system that is going to
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: be all about and is all about attracting the best
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: talent into the UK because not just a numbers game,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: it's the quality of the workforce that you're bringing into
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: the UK. And we believe if you're attracting the top packer,
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: demics and researchers, the top entrepreneurs, the people who went
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: to the best universities in the world, you're not displacing jobs.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: What you're doing is creating more wealth and opportunity. And
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: so you know, we're doing a number of visa waivers
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: for fee waivers for the top talent in the world
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to come to the UK and we want to send
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: out the message loud and clear that Britain wants to
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: be a magnet for the best talent in the world.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Respect to the economy, here is it your view that
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the UK economy is going to grow somewhat like the
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: EU economy. You're not going to outgrow we are.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: We are outmat Last year we outgrew Italy, France and
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: Germany and I think that will continue to be the
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: same this year. You know, we are an open trading
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: economy with trade deals with emerging markets around the world,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: the best trade deal with the US.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: We've got great.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: Innovation going on through our universeities and with our entrepreneurs
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: and founders. In the UK we are as services based economy,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: but also with amazing advanced manufacturing as well, So I
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: think we are set up for success in the UK.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: For foreign investors, people who live in the United States
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: or on the continent in Europe or China or Asia.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Why should they invest their money in the UK? Is
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the growth rates good enough to attract capital? Are the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: regulations fair enough and easy enough? Why should somebody invest
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: in the UK?
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: Well, the UK stock market was one of the best
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: performing stock markets in the world last year. The foot
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Sea one hundred went up by just over twenty one percent,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: so pretty good returns on your investment. We have got
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: in the UK four of the top universities in the world,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: with some amazing businesses spinning out of those universities in
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: life sciences, in quantum in AI, increasingly in the defense
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: sector and dual use technologies. Tons of exciting stuff happening
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: in the UK. We've got some amazing unicorn businesses that
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: have started and are now scaling up in the UK,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: and we're making it easier for businesses to list and
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: to raise finance in Britain. So this is an exciting time.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: You think about all of the growth sectors in the
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: economy today and those are all areas where Britain has
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: real advantages, real strengths. And so that's why I think
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: that this is going to be Britain's year, and I'm
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: really confident.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So what do you do in your spare time? I
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: assume you can't be Chancellor of the Exchequer twenty four
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: hours a day, seven days a week. Are you an athlete,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: you collect anything? Do you have any hobbies? What do
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you do on the outside.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: Well, I've got two children who are aged twelve and ten,
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: so they keep me pretty busy when I'm not working
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: and I love spending time with them. I had a
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: wonderful time over Christmas the New Year where I got
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: to indulge in a bit more cooking, which I don't
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: have a time for very much with the usual cut
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: and thrust of work and politics. Also a keen runner
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: and try and go running several times a week, and
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: very lucky, very blessed in London to live near the
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: beautiful royal parks in London and so make use of
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: running through those.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: If you're running in the park, who people come up
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: to you and say lower taxes or anything like that?
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Has that ever happened?
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: I try and go running quite early in the morning
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: to avoid that sort of thing and keep my head down.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: And your children call you chancellor or they just call
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you mom.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, mom is about the politest thing they'll call me.
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: They're wonderful children, and they absolutely keep me grounded. They've
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: got very strong views and very strong principles already themselves.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I'm incredibly proud of them.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: Final question is I've often thought the best titles in
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: the world for a job you can have are Supreme Allet, Commander,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: President of the World Bank, Chief Justice of the United States,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and Chancellor of the Exchequer. So do your friends call
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you Rachel? They call you chancellor, miss xchecker. What do
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: your friends call you now that you're Chancellor of the exchecker?
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: I'm just still Rachel to them. But the other day
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: I bumped into the head of six, our security service,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: and I was with my twelve year old and I said,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: you know, this woman is the head of six our
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: security service.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And my daughter.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: Said, that is a much cooler job than my mom's,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: so I was certainly put in my place.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen