Rachel Reeves Becomes UK’s First Woman Finance Minister at Age 45

Rachel Reeves, the first female finance minister in Britain, is a Bank of England economist and a former champion child chess player. She has committed to strengthening the country’s economy while exercising strict fiscal restraint.

Reeves, 45, was appointed chancellor of the exchequer after her center-left Labour party easily won Thursday’s UK general election, toppling the right-wing Conservatives’ 14-year reign.

After being named chancellor of the exchequer by newly appointed prime minister Keir Starmer, Reeves posted on social networking platform X, saying, “It is the honour of my life.”

“To every young girl and woman reading this, let today show that there should be no limits on your ambitions.”

Labour had put the economy at the heart of its election manifesto, making growth and wealth creation the government’s key priorities, although the latter emphasis is not usually associated with the party’s traditional left-wing policies.

“Economic growth was the Labour Party’s mission,” Reeves added on Friday.

“It is now a national mission. Let’s get to work,” said the married mother of two.

“Iron Chancellor”

Reeves recently told company executives that Labour had become “the natural party of British business”, adding that the party would show “iron discipline” on finances.

The comments drew comparisons with Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady,” Britain’s first female prime minister.

Unlike Thatcher, the Conservative leader who privatized key sectors after becoming prime minister in 1979, Reeves wants a kind of renationalization, particularly in the energy sector, and is guided by the policies of US President Joe Biden.

Labour has pledged to create a state-owned enterprise, Great British Energy, to take the lead alongside the private sector in financing a “green” transition away from fossil fuels.

James Wood, a lecturer in political economy at Cambridge University, said Labour and Reeves want to use public resources “responsibly.”

“When she talks about being an iron chancellor, I think what she means is: we`re going to balance the books and we’re going to be responsible — and we’re going to try and get Britain’s economy running… in a responsible way,” he told AFP.

London-born Reeves capitalised on public anger at Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, whose underfunded 2022 mini-budget caused the pound to plummet and mortgage rates to rise, deepening the cost-of-living crisis.

“They want to distance themselves from fiscal irresponsibility, not making big promises about spending that they can’t possibly keep,” Wood added.

A career in banking

Reeves, whose parents were teachers, is used to outwitting his opponents.

She became the British Women’s Chess Champion at the age of 14, and went on to study philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University, before gaining a master’s degree at the London School of Economics.

After graduating, she worked for 10 years, initially as an economist at the Bank of England, before moving to the private sector.

She worked for British retail bank HBOS when the global financial crisis hit in 2008, leading her employer, along with other financial institutions, to receive a huge bailout from Gordon Brown’s Labour government.

In 2010, when the Conservatives came to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats, Reeves was elected Labour MP for Leeds West in the north of England.

Eleven years later, Starmer appointed her as Labour’s finance spokesperson. Her sister, Ellie Reeves , is also a Labour MP.