Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks at the Treasury in London, UK, on July 8, 2024.
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“This will be the most pro-growth, pro-business Treasury this country has ever seen,” Reeves told CNBC's Steve Sedgwick in a remote interview.
“I will work with businesses to do all I can to bring wealth creation and business investment to the UK economy,” she added.
Reeves, who has been Chancellor of the Exchequer for three weeks following the Labour Party's landslide victory in the UK general election on 4 July, was speaking from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where he was attending a meeting of G20 finance ministers.
The chancellor said he had already met with business leaders interested in doing business in the UK, but acknowledged that businesses needed greater clarity on taxation.
Finance Minister Reeves is due to outline the results of the Treasury audit on Monday, which is expected to reveal a surplus of 20 billion pounds ($25.7 billion) in the public finances.
The announcement could pave the way for an autumn budget that could include tax increases, the new administration's first big fiscal event. A date for the fiscal plan is also due to be announced on Monday.
“The issue around tax is of course a budget issue,” Reeves said, declining to comment on specific details, but added that he wanted to ensure the UK had a “competitive tax system”.
“I want to keep taxes as low as possible, but unlike the previous government, I will not make promises we cannot keep and cannot say where the money will come from. The first mandate of this government will be to grow the economy, and to grow the economy we need to attract wealth-creating people to the UK,” she said.
“Higher growth and greater prosperity cannot be achieved by simply raising taxes and spending. To achieve that, we need to attract business investment.”
Mr Reeves has so far ruled out raising income tax, national insurance, VAT or corporation tax – the government's main sources of revenue – but the chancellor faces a delicate balancing act given his party has also pledged to increase national investment and civil servant pay.
Starmer hinted at tough financial decisions coming up on Wednesday, telling Parliament the government faces a “deeper crisis than we thought” as he reviewed the financial state of Conservative governments over the past 14 years.
The center-left party leader has vowed to take a tough stance on public spending until the country's finances are restored, and on Tuesday suspended seven party members who voted against a proposal to lift the cap on second-child benefit spending.
As the country seeks to emerge from a cost-of-living crisis, Labour reiterated its commitment to putting the country back on the path to economic growth as its “fundamental mission” in last week's King Speech.
Economic measures announced so far by the government include nationalising the railways, creating a public clean electricity company, further investing in public services and building new homes.
The G20 meeting was an early outing for the new Chancellor, who declared it an opportunity to “reset” some of the UK's relationships with other countries.
The comments echoed similar comments made by Starmer at the European Political Community summit last week, when he sought to distance his government from the UK's previous leadership.
Watch the full interview with Rachel Reeves on CNBC on Monday, July 29.
