Who is Rachel Reeves?

Rachel Reeves has had a bumpy first few months in government.

Her tax-hiking Budget prompted criticism from businesses and farmers, and despite Labour putting a pledge to boost the economy at the centre of its plans, growth has been sluggish.

Now the chancellor is facing questions about whether she exaggerated her experience on her online CV and her use of expenses while working in the banking sector before she became an MP.

• The 'Iron Chancellor' will have to flex to get the growth she wants
• The Chancellor and her expenses before she became an MP

Reeves was born in south-east London in 1979, just months before Margaret Thatcher became prime minister at a time of immense social and economic change.

She has previously told the BBC her mother would tick off items on a bank statement against receipts while sitting at the kitchen table: "We weren't poor, but we didn't have money to waste."

Her parents separated when she was at primary school, and she and younger sister Ellie, also a Labour MP, were shuttled between separate homes.

During the school holidays, the sisters would spend time with their grandparents in the Northamptonshire town of Kettering.

They would be taken to do the rounds of relatives' houses, who would give them a 20p or 50p piece each. At the end of their week, they were taken to the local toy shop to choose their goodies. While Ellie would spend all her cash, the young Rachel would allow herself a smaller treat and save most of the money.

Decades later, Chancellor Reeves would say that kind of restraint defines her, and she has very much modelled herself on Gordon Brown’s "prudence" in the lead-up to Labour’s 1997 election win.

Reeves played chess from an early age, with her father teaching her the key moves. She became a national under-14 champion, and would "quietly thrash" any boys who might think they were in for an easy game, according to Ellie.

She has credited chess with teaching her "to think ahead, to plan a strategy".

A keen flute player, she took her music GCSE a year early at Beckenham's Cator Park School for Girls, a comprehensive, and would go on to gain four A grades at A-level.

Seeing the extent of cuts at her school, where the library had been turned into a classroom and the sixth form consisted of "two pre-fab huts in the playground", she has said she was politicised by her own experience of public services. At the age of 16, she joined the Labour Party.

She went on to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University. As a student, she would host others before college discos, blasting out Destiny's Child songs and dressing up in her room.

Despite her serious demeanour, colleagues and friends have suggested the Labour MP's public persona does not reflect her human side, including a loud laugh and a deep love of Beyoncé tracks.

Age: 46

Place of birth: Lewisham, south-east London

Education: New College, Oxford and the London School of Economics

Family: Married to Nicholas Joicey, a senior civil servant and former speechwriter to Gordon Brown during his time as chancellor. They have two children. Her sister is Labour Party chair Ellie Reeves.

Parliamentary constituency: Leeds West and Pudsey

After graduating, Reeves took on a role as an economist at the Bank of England.

She worked on the central bank's Japan desk, looking at the country's attempts to come out of stagnation in the 1990s.

During a secondment to the UK embassy in Washington, she met her future husband Nicholas Joicey, who had spent time as a film critic for newspapers and as a speechwriter to then-Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Before becoming MP for Leeds West in 2010, Reeves moved to the city and spent time working there for the retail arm of Halifax Bank of Scotland.

Her career at HBOS has now come under scrutiny, after the BBC revealed Reeves and two colleagues were the subject of an expenses probe while she was a senior manager at the bank.

The initial stage of the HBOS investigation found that a whistleblower's complaint was substantiated, and the three employees appeared to have broken the rules, according to a senior source with direct knowledge of the probe.

The BBC has not been able to establish what the final outcome of the investigation was and it might not have concluded.

A spokesman for Reeves said the chancellor had no knowledge of the investigation, always complied with expenses rules and left the bank on good terms.

Reeves has also faced questions about the accuracy of her online CV, which the BBC found exaggerated the length of time she worked at the Bank of England.

A spokesman for Reeves confirmed that dates on her LinkedIn were inaccurate and blamed an administrative error by the team.

Last year, her LinkedIn profile was also changed to describe her role at HBOS as "Retail Banking".

It had previously claimed she worked as an economist at the bank, but she instead held a management role in the bank's customer relations department, which dealt with complaints.

Entering Parliament in 2010, an early mentor on economic policy was Alistair Darling - the last Labour chancellor, during the financial crisis.

She quickly rose up the party's ranks, shadowing roles at the Treasury, Work and Pensions, and the Cabinet Office.

Throughout Jeremy Corbyn's four and a half years as Labour leader, she remained on the backbenches because she felt she could not endorse his policies. Called a "Red Tory" by some in the party, she described this as a "very unpleasant period" in an interview with the BBC's Nick Robinson.

A former editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme was forced to issue a written apology to Reeves after calling her "boring snoring" on social media in a post that was meant to be a private message.

While she said the incident was "deeply humiliating", her key objective after Sir Keir Starmer appointed her shadow chancellor was to portray Labour as a steady, pro-business hand on the economy.

In October 2023, she admitted she "should have done better" after it emerged some passages in her book, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, had been lifted from other sources without acknowledgment.

She told the BBC some sentences "were not properly referenced" and this would be corrected in future reprints.

Last July, Reeves became the country's first female chancellor and quickly faced what she described as "tough choices".

She claimed a "black hole" in the nation's finances meant winter fuel payments would have to be cut for millions of pensioners and National Insurance hiked for employers.

Despite Labour's attempts to win over businesses during the election campaign, many were disappointed they bore the brunt of the £40bn in tax rises announced in her first Budget.

Before winning power, Reeves promised she would govern with "iron discipline" and bring stability to the public finances, leading to comparisons with Conservative "Iron Chancellor" Margaret Thatcher.

Now Reeves is under pressure to deliver the economic growth promised by her party, while also ensuring people feel better off.