In our first year Labour fixed the foundations – now we must build a stronger economy for a renewed Britain | Rachel Reeves

Labour is reversing a decade of stagnation and we're making progress on wages, jobs and trade. But there is more to do

• Rachel Reeves is the chancellor of the exchequer

These past few weeks I have met dozens of businesses from across the United Kingdom. Pub and restaurant owners in Cornwall and Kent. Defence manufacturers in Belfast and Moray. Investment opportunities in Aberdeenshire and Port Talbot.

I have seen an economy that has the ingredients for success - a skilled and committed workforce, world-class universities, innovative businesses. You don't hear Reform or the Conservatives talk of this success. They want you to believe the economy is broken. That our best days are behind us and that the path of decline is inevitable. I fundamentally reject that. It is not the country I see around us, and it is not the future I believe in. Britain's economy is not broken, but I know that in recent years it has got stuck.

Rachel Reeves is chancellor of the exchequer

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