6.12.12
Leeds Student chats to Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves, Labour’s Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury.
How do you think this background influenced your politics and outlook?
There are two different influences. When I joined the Labour party in the mid-1990s it was because of what id seen in my community and my school. There were two prefab huts in the playground – that was our sixth form. The reality is that if you come from a low income background and you don’t have the books at home or get the support from your parents, if you’re also not getting the support in school you’re not going to be able to fulfil your potential. The library was turned into a classroom, there wasn’t enough room to study and there were never enough textbooks to go around. The other is the influence of the career I’ve had outside of politics. The biggest challenge we face at the moment is the economic challenge of getting people back to work and reducing the deficit. I hope that the fact that I have worked for ten or so years in economics and financial services gives me some sort of insight into the types of policies that you need to achieve those things.
Being the first member of the Shadow Cabinet to be pregnant whilst in office, how do you think this will affect your career?
I’m having a baby in march and like most people that have children Ill have some time off on maternity leave and both Ed Miliband and Ed Balls (my bosses) have been incredible supportive. If you sort of said, oh, if you’re an MP you’re not going to have time to have children then you would have MPs that have a very odd life compared to the people that they’re supposed to be representing. So I suppose that I’m going to be facing some of the challenges that mums and dads in Leeds West and around the country are facing and perhaps that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
So, you spoke a bit about Labour putting growth and jobs first, but how will it improve university graduates’ job prospects?
At a time where students are taking on more and more debt to go to university, I think it’s incredibly important that there are good quality jobs paying decent wages for people when they graduate. We’ve said that we would reinstate the banker bonus tax and use that to create 100,000 jobs for young people, and we would do that through a mixture of work placements, wage subsidies and apprenticeships to get people working in good quality jobs in the private sector as well. We have a million people out of work and a third of them have been out of work for more than a year, and that’s a huge waste of people’s talent and potential but also as a massive economic cost, not just for today, but for years to come.
How are you different to the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats?
If you look at policies, it would be so easy to reintroduce the banking bonus tax. Next year anyone earning over £1m a year is going to get a tax cut of £40,000 every single year, and that’s twice what the average constituent of mine earns in a year. Its about priorities, if you’ve got that money to spend on a tax cut, shouldn’t it be going to ordinary people rather than those at the top? That’s what my priority would be.
We published an interview with Nick Griffin. What is your view on a no platform policy?
I would prefer people like him not to have a platform for their views but I think also – why do you want to publish an interview with him? Is that what your readers want to read or are you trying to be controversial? At a time when the BNP share of the vote is falling, where they are losing councillors and they are splitting all over the place, why give him that platform and that voice that he doesn’t deserve and doesn’t need.
In 2011, you visited Israel. What are your views on the conflict there are the moment?
I’m pleased that there’s a ceasefire because the bloodshed on both sides is incredibly depressing and will put back efforts to find peace in the region. Its ordinary Israelis and Palestinians who are paying the price for the failure of getting the peace process back on track. You’ve got to have a two-state solution. You’ve got to have Israelis and Palestinians living side-by-side, safe and secure Israel but a viable and sustainable Palestinian state and until you get that, the fighting will continue. And it’s not just about Israel and Palestine its about the Middle East – about Iran’s sponsorship of terrorism, its about what’s happening in Syria as well. That whole area needs to have focus on it in a way that perhaps it hasn’t done for the last few years.
Are we going to see you following Nadine into the jungle?
[Laughs] certainly not! My job is representing my constituents and the only jungle I’m in is the Leeds West jungle.
Words: James Greenhalgh & Isabel Alderson Blench
Photo: UK Parliament