Jeremy Hunt makes ‘cut and paste’ jibe at Rachel Reeves sparking howls of laughter from Tory MPs

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt made a dig at shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves while delivering his Autumn Statement – making a thinly veiled reference to allegations she plagiarised parts of her new book.

Ms Reeves said she held her “hands up” and acknowledged making mistakes in her new economic history book last month after the allegations of plagiarism surfaced.

The shadow chancellor admitted some sentences in the volume, The Women Who Made Modern Economics, were “not properly referenced in the bibliography”.

Delivering his Autumn Budget on Wednesday, Mr Hunt smirked as he took aim at Ms Reeves, telling the Commons: “Let’s start with inflation.

“The shadow chancellor didn’t mention it in her conference speech. My conference speech was before hers so all she had to do was a bit of copying and pasting which I’ve heard she’s good at.”

His dig was met with raucous laughter from the Tory benches, including from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Ms Reeves also smiled from across the floor.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves delivering her speech in the Commons on Wednesday (PA)

On Ms Reeves’ Labour’s conference speech, the Chancellor added: “It speaks volumes that during the worst global inflation shock for a generation, it didn’t even get a mention.

“Well, if controlling inflation isn’t a priority for Labour, it is for us. When the Prime Minister and I took office, inflation was at 11.1 per cent. Last week, it fell to 4.6 per cent. We promised to halve inflation and we have halved it.

“Core inflation is now lower than in nearly half of the economies in the EU, and the OBR say headline inflation will fall to 2.8 per cent by the end of 2024, before falling to the 2 per cent target in 2025.”

The Government is delivering on all three of the Prime Minister’s economic pledges, Jeremy Hunt claimed.

“Three of the Prime Minister’s five pledges at the start of the year were economic: to halve inflation, grow the economy and reduce debt. Today I can report to the House that we are delivering on all three,” he said.

Mr Hunt vowed on Wednesday to “reward” workers as he cut business and personal taxes in a dash for economic growth ahead of a likely election next year.

“Our plan for the British economy is working, but the work is not done,” he told the House of Commons, promising “110 different growth measures” in his package.

The headline measure was a bigger-than-expected cut in National Insurance, from 12 per cent to 10 per cent, for 27 million working people effective from January.