Rachel Reeves has been forced to correct the official parliamentary record after giving MPs and peers inaccurate figures on both unemployment and her flagship pension reforms, prompting renewed questions over her command of economic detail.
The Treasury confirmed that Hansard, the record of parliamentary proceedings, had been amended following errors made by the Chancellor during committee hearings.
In one exchange, Reeves told MPs that the £425bn Local Government Pension Scheme was managed by “96 different administering authorities” and that she intended to cut this down to “eight pools” under her reforms to boost investment and efficiency. Officials later conceded the true figures were 86 authorities and a planned consolidation into six pools.
She also misquoted labour market data during an appearance before the House of Lords economic affairs committee, saying that “20% of people of working age are economically inactive and we have an unemployment rate of just over 4%.” The Treasury clarified that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) puts economic inactivity at 21% and the unemployment rate at 4.7%.
The mistakes, first highlighted by the Mail on Sunday, come at a sensitive time as Reeves faces mounting pressure over her first autumn Budget. Economists warn she may need to raise as much as £50bn to plug a hole in the public finances, a gap critics argue has been widened by policies that have dented business confidence and investment.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, accused Reeves of having a “shocking grasp of detail”. He said: “When she’s writing such big cheques with taxpayers’ money, it’s no time to be loose with your numbers.”
This is not the first time the Chancellor has been forced into a public correction. In February, she was compelled to revise remarks about wage growth, having claimed that “since the election we’ve seen year-on-year wages after inflation growing at their fastest rate”. Treasury officials later clarified that real wage growth was running at its fastest pace in three years, not at a record high.
Last year, Reeves also faced scrutiny for exaggerating elements of her CV. She had claimed to have worked as an economist at Bank of Scotland — a role the lender said was misdescribed — and overstated her time at the Bank of England.
The repeated slip-ups are beginning to fuel criticism about her readiness for the Treasury brief. Reeves, who has billed herself as Britain’s first female Chancellor with a mission to restore fiscal credibility, is under intense scrutiny to deliver both accuracy and authority at a time when fiscal headroom is limited and expectations are high.
The corrections come just weeks before Reeves is due to deliver the autumn Budget. With interest payments on government debt climbing and growth sluggish, speculation is mounting about how she intends to balance the books.
She has already ruled out raising income tax, National Insurance or VAT, but the options left on the table — including potential changes to inheritance tax and capital gains tax — risk fuelling controversy.
For now, Reeves is under pressure not just to make the numbers add up, but to convince both Parliament and the markets that she has a firm grip on them in the first place.
The Treasury declined to comment further.
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Reeves forced to correct parliamentary record after misquoting key figures