Fact check: Rachel Reeves empathises with woman struggling with her bills

A widely shared post on social media has claimed that Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’ “only response to a woman saying she struggles to pay her bills is that she’ll be ‘the first female chancellor’.”

It includes a short video of Ms Reeves and several other women.

Evaluation

The video has been cut. Ms Reeves says many more supportive comments in the full clip.

The facts

In the video, a woman speaking to Ms Reeves said: “I pay my electric this month, leave it next month, do a payment plan for the following month. Basically robbing Pete to pay Paul.”

It then cuts to Ms Reeves saying: “If I do become chancellor I’d be the first ever female chancellor of the Exchequer.”

Gesturing to her sister, Ellie Reeves, Labour’s candidate for Lewisham West and East Dulwich, who is sitting next to her, Rachel Reeves says: “We’ve both got young kids. I know we’re on better wages with the jobs that we do, but we work really long hours…”

At that point, the clip cuts out. In the full video shared on her X, formerly Twitter, account on June 12 ,the shadow chancellor immediately says: “…we know how expensive childcare is. We’re lucky that our mum and dad are able to help us both a bit.

“We’ve made a commitment to have free breakfast clubs at all primary schools and we’ve also committed to 100,000 new nursery places at schools.

“I know it’s tough at the moment, we won’t be able to fix everything straight away. I know that it’s a real mess, what I’m going to inherit if I get the job, but we are determined to start to make things better for working families like all of yours.”

Links

Post on X (archived post and video)

Rachel Reeves on X (archived post and video)