Rachel Reeves repeatedly met senior Treasury officials in the run-up to the general election, despite claiming surprise at the size of the spending “black hole” after taking office.
The Chancellor is understood to have held talks with James Bowler, the Treasury permanent secretary, as part of transition discussions ahead of the election in July.
She personally held a “handful” of meetings with senior Treasury figures, according to a well-placed source, while her team of advisers conducted more frequent conversations ahead of the election.
The Tories said the new details raised questions over whether Ms Reeves was really in the dark over the scale of spending challenges before the election.
Ms Reeves has defended her £40 billion tax rises in this week’s Budget, a volte-face on pre-election promises to keep taxes low, by saying she was blindsided by spending needs and claiming she faced an unexpected £22 billion financial black hole.
Jeremy Hunt, who was the Tory chancellor before the election, told The Telegraph: “I don’t think for a moment the Chancellor was unaware of the pressures on public finances.
“But the speed with which she came up with the £22billion story makes it feel like there was always a plan to blame her predecessors for tax rises she knew she would want to do.”
Throughout the run-up to the general election, Ms Reeves and Sir Keir Starmer insisted they were not planning a big increase in taxes if they won office.
Then shortly after Labour’s landslide victory in July, Ms Reeves, newly installed in the Treasury, claimed her Tory predecessors had left the £22 billion spending “black hole”.
Mr Hunt and other senior Tories claimed that the figure was an exaggeration and was being used by Labour as a pretext for tax rises they always planned before the election.
The Office for Budget Responsibility, the Government’s independent economic forecaster, on Wednesday declined to endorse Labour’s £22 billion spending “black hole” claim.
The forecaster said Mr Hunt’s Treasury had not shared details of about £9 billion of spending pressures before the March 2022 Budget – a rebuke – but did not back up the £22 billion figure.
Ms Reeves’s personal conversations with senior Treasury figures before the election raise questions about whether she was aware of hidden spending pressures ahead of the vote.
But Lord Macpherson, the former Treasury permanent secretary, has previously suggested officials would not have been able to share such details with Ms Reeves.
He wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, of senior Treasury figures that “rules precluded them sharing spending pressures with Ms Reeves ahead of the election”.
