New Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves today told The Mail on Sunday that she is committed to economic growth and prosperity.

She says she is committed to leading “the most growth-promoting and business-friendly Treasury Department in our country’s history.”

Everyone should be happy about this, because without such policies the country will deteriorate and fail.

She even compares herself to Margaret Thatcher’s bold Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, who became famous for his ‘Big Bang’ deregulation of the City of London in 1986.

Ms Reeves promises her own ‘Big Bang’, saying: ‘Previous governments have talked about a big bang on tax or regulation. I want to lead a big bang on growth because that is the only way we can fix the foundations so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.’

She makes a special point of promising to improve the position of pensioners, while ensuring that this country’s pension schemes invest in fast-growing British companies, providing a new engine to stimulate growth and benefit investors. She suggests that £8 billion of investment could be released in this way.

She also predicts that the policy could boost some pension pots by around £11,000, by ensuring they are well managed and offer better value for money. These are laudable aims – and they contrast sharply with suggestions from Whitehall that the new Chancellor is under pressure from the Treasury to launch an inheritance tax raid on some types of pension savings.

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Like every Chancellor of the Exchequer in modern history, Rachel Reeves promises to tackle waste, but perhaps she will forgive us if we wonder whether that will achieve much.

This is the life finance ministers have to lead: an endless battle between politics and finance, endless lobbying by cabinet colleagues for more money, trying to keep politically sensitive taxes low and the ever-increasing need to pay interest on the huge loans that still hang around the country’s neck.

An example of this battle is our information that Ms Reeves – backed by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer – is also in favour of the long-delayed third runway at Heathrow Airport, which seems an ideal part of her proposed ‘dash for growth’.

Yet here and in other areas she faces potential opposition from the Green lobby and from her cabinet champion, Energy Secretary Ed Miliband.

Unlike more centralised and autocratic countries, the British government cannot simply build new airports, roads or railways.

There are enough forces and laws that can and will stand in the way, and enough people willing to use them.

No matter how much the new administration tears up regulations, it will still have to deal with the growing power of environmentalists, often allied with lobbyists opposed to oil, roads and carbon neutrality.

Ms Reeves will also have to deal with Deputy First Minister Angela Rayner, who is fulfilling her role as guardian of the socialist flame and pursuing her package of workers’ rights.

The more technocratic ministers may hope to push Ms Rayner aside, but all the signs are that she will be a powerful voice for Labour’s traditional and unionist wing. She will not necessarily be as committed to growth as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

After all, this is a Labour government and many members of the new Labour Party in parliament will be enthusiastic about the Labour weapons of tax and spend.

It is unfortunate that the Chancellor has bypassed these powers by claiming that she has “inherited the worst economic conditions since World War II.” But we still hope that she will stick to her pro-growth, pro-business message.