Exclusive: Two-thirds of voters have no confidence in Rachel Reeves
A majority of Brits now have little confidence in Rachel Reeves’ plan to generate economic growth despite a renewed push from the Chancellor to kickstart Britain’s ailing economy, exclusive polling for City PM has found.
More than 70 per cent of voters have said they are not confident in the Chancellor’s fiscal plans and around 67 per cent lack confidence in her ability to manage the economy, according to the latest City PM Freshwater Strategy poll.
The research, which took place days after Reeves tried to reboot her economic agenda with a slew of growth measures last week, lays bare the scale of concern at the government’s handling of the economy and suggests the Chancellor’s reset has failed to win round voters.
“In a bid to shift the narrative, the Chancellor unveiled a slate of pro-growth measures last week — ranging from Heathrow expansion and accelerated infrastructure planning to regulatory reform,” said Matthew Lesh, UK country manager for Freshwater Strategy. “Yet, these announcements have done little to shift sentiment.”
Under the plans, Reeves greenlit a third runway for Heathrow and unveiled billions of pounds of investment for an Oxford-Cambridge “Growth Corridor”, including new housing and train links between the two Cities.
Reeves also doubled down on her pledge to make growth the government’s “number one mission”.
However, the economy has flatlined since Labour took power and business and consumer confidence has cratered on the back of the £40bn worth of tax rises set out at the Budget.
The latest plans were dealt a fresh blow yesterday as EY’s ITEM Club, a group of forecasters, slashed their GDP growth expectations for 2025 yesterday to one per cent, down from the 1.5 per cent predicted in October.
The downgrade reflected “the stagnation in growth the economy experienced in the second half of 2024”, EY said.
Tax hikes coming
More than 50 per cent of voters polled by Freshwater said they are now expecting Reeves and Starmer to break a manifesto pledge by lifting income tax during this parliament.
Over half of people also expect corporation tax and Employers National Insurance contributions to rise, while just over four in ten expect VAT to increase.
Fears of further tax hikes come amid expectations that Reeves will have broken her self-imposed fiscal rules when the Office for Budget Responsibility published new forecasts in the spring.
A spike in government gilt yields at the start of the year pushed up the cost of servicing government debt and is expected to have all but wiped out the Chancellor’s £9.9bn fiscal headroom.
Deutsche Bank warned investors last month to prepare for a “painful” sequel to the Budget, with Reeves likely to “lift taxes at least one more time following last year’s historic tax raising event”.
Reeves is also said to have warned several government departments to prepare for their budgets to be frozen as she prepares to launch a spending review in June, Bloomberg reported yesterday.
Departments without protected budgets, including culture, trade and justice, are at risk of having their budgets held at current levels.
A Treasury spokesperson said: “We are going further and faster to kickstart economic growth and raise living standards, with the IMF and OECD forecasting Britain to be Europe’s fastest growing major economy in the coming years, a clear majority of UK CEOs anticipating growth this year, and the UK ranking as the 2nd best place in the world to invest.”
Method note: Freshwater Strategy interviewed n=1,200 eligible voters in the UK, aged 18+, online, between 31 January – 2 February 2025. Margin of Error +/- 2.8%. Data are weighted to be representative of UK voters.