Rachel Reeves Hits Back At Laura Kuenssberg For Suggesting Labour Are ‘Control Freakish’

Laura Kuenssberg accused the Labour Party of acting in a “control freakish” way this morning, only to be shut down by the chancellor.

Speaking on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the presenter challenged the new government’s plans for growth and infrastructure amid growing Nimby – “not in my back yard” – concerns.

She asked Rachel Reeves: “Are you saying that in order to grow the economy, people are just going to have to suck it up, to tolerate things in their local communities that they don’t want?”

Reeves replied: “We can’t carry on like we are.

“We can’t carry on not building energy infrastructure, and not building housing.

“Because if we carry on like we are, energy bills are going to continue to go through the roof.

“We are going to continue to be reliant on Putin and dictators around the world for our basic energy needs.

“I’m not willing for our country to be at the mercy of dictators in that way.”

Kuenssberg replied: “But that means by implication that people in communities are sometimes going to have to suck it up.”

“We are going to have to make tough decisions,” Reeves hit back. “I’m not going to shy away from that.

“And some of these tough decisions were sitting on the previous energy minister’s [Claire Coutinho] desk for months. But she wasn’t willing to make those difficult decisions, but we are.”

Reeves added that it was not possible to keep saying no to investment projects for the economy.

Kuenssberg then said: “I just wonder if you would acknowledge it – maybe you’re proud of it – that this new government is significantly expanding the powers of the state.

“People might look at some of the things you’re involved in and think, well, actually, this group of people with the intentions you set out of changing the country, maybe you’re willing to be quite ‘control-freakish’.”

But Reeves used the Labour proposal of having railways back in public ownership to say she thought most Brits would see that an “improvement on the fragmented system that we have today”.

She said: “Yes, we are going to make different decisions, things aren’t going to carry on as they were – we were elected on a mandate to change things, not to carry on as we were because people were sick of the status quo.

“We’re not about the status quo, we’re about improving things for the better.”