Cabinet minister defends Rachel Reeves trip to China during economic crisis
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The value of the pound fell to its lowest level in over a year while UK borrowing costs jumped to their highest since the financial crisis. A Cabinet Minister has defended Rachel Reeves for going ahead with a visit to China instead of staying at home to tackle fears of an economic crisis.
![[“I don’t think we should be worried”, the culture secretary said]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2024/12/11/22/840611a173db4431bcce7714b8757a28Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM0MDQxNzcw-2.78022224.jpg)
Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said the Chancellor was ‘absolutely right’ to ignore Tory calls to abandon the trip.She insisted Ms Reeves economic strategy was ‘on track.’. However, Ms Nandy conceded that the Government’s economic plans were not ‘all going swimmingly.’ Her comments came amid claims that Ms Reeves, the most powerful member of Keir Starmer’s team, is facing criticism from members of her own Cabinet.
![[Rachel Reeves is to visit China this weekend (PA)]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/10/00/4d28b20176faaa5bd75a359f7aba3fb0Y29udGVudHNlYXJjaGFwaSwxNzM2NTUxOTk1-2.78582925.jpg)
Ms Nandy said she was confident Ms Reeves was on course to ‘get the economy growing again.’. She continued: “That is why it is absolutely right and proper that the Chancellor is taking seriously our relationship with the world’s second largest economy and is in China this weekend.
“We are confident we are on track to be the fastest growing economy in Europe.”. When Ms Nandy was challenged by the BBC that she was ‘in denial’ at the scale of the economic problems, she replied: “I’m not for a moment saying it is all going swimmingly.”.
The Tories had called on Ms Reeves to abandon the China trip to deal with soaring borrowing costs and a dramatic fall in Sterling. Some critics have compared the situation to the economic crisis in 1976 when Labour Chancellor Denis Healey was forced to cancel a trip to the US at the last minute to deal with an economic crisis in the UK.
