Keir Starmer has insisted Rachel Reeves will be chancellor “for many, many years to come” amid fierce criticism of her performance in the job.

The prime minister delivered his vote of confidence following days of negative news on the economy.

Government borrowing costs have hit record highs, increasing speculation that the Treasury will order a fresh round of spending cuts.

The value of the pound has also fallen – leading to comparisons with the aftermath of Liz Truss’ disastrous mini-Budget in 2022.

But at prime minister’s questions in the Commons this afternoon, Starmer insisted the chancellor’s job was safe as she came under attack from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

She said: “At the Budget, Labour were congratulating themselves on having the first female chancellor, instead of ensuring that the country actually had somebody qualified to do the job.

“The prime minister claims he has full confidence in the chancellor, but the markets clearly do not.

“Yesterday the chancellor repeated her promise to have just one budget per year to provide businesses with certainty.

“The talk in the City is that she can’t meet her fiscal rules, and there will need to be an emergency budget. So does the prime minister stand by the chancellor’s commitment that there will be only one budget this year?”

Starmer told her: “She’ll will be pleased to know the chancellor will be in place for many, many years to come. She’ll outstrip them.

“If we all thought that politics was about cheap words, I could criticise their chancellors, but I don’t have enough time to go through all the chancellors that they had.

“We had one Budget, that’s what we’re committed to, strong fiscal rules, that’s what we’ll stick to, unlike the party opposite.”