Rachel Reeves has appeared in public after her tearful Prime Minister’s Questions. The Chancellor attended the launch of the Government’s 10-year NHS plan in London alongside Sir Keir Starmer in a show of unity.

Ms Reeves was seen smiling and laughing with Sir Keir and Health Secretary Wes Streeting. Setting out the Government’s decision to pump cash into the NHS she said: “We fixed the foundations and we’ve put our economy back on a strong footing.”

But the press conference was largely dominated by questions on Ms Reeves’s emotional PMQs and Labour’s welfare U-turn. The Prime Minister reiterated that Ms Reeves’s teary appearance was down to a “personal issue” and said she will be making decisions “for many years to come”.

He said: “I’m trying not to stand here and speak for the Chancellor, but as she’s made clear on a number of occasions, yesterday was a personal issue, and I’m certainly not going to say anything more about that.

“I think it’s just fantastic she’s here and, as I say, none of this would be happening if she hadn’t taken the decisions that she’s taken.

“So she took those decisions, and she would take them for many years to come.”

He added that he did not “appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying behind him because of the intense nature of the Commons debate.

Asked why he did not react to the Chancellor’s tears, Sir Keir said: “I didn’t appreciate what was happening because, as you will probably appreciate, PMQs is pretty wired. It goes from question to question and I am literally up, down, question, looking at who is asking me a question, thinking about my response and getting up and answering it.

“It wasn’t just yesterday. No prime minister ever has had side conversations in PMQs. It does happen in other debates when there is a bit more time, but in PMQs it is bang, bang, bang, bang. That is what it was yesterday and therefore I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber.

“That is just a straightforward human explanation.”

Sir Keir failed to say he would keep the Chancellor in the top economic job yesterday when challenged by the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.

The Tory leader said Ms Reeves looked “absolutely miserable” and challenged the Prime Minister to say whether she would keep her job until the next election.

Sir Keir dodged the question about whether Ms Reeves would be in place for the remainder of the Parliament, saying Mrs Badenoch “certainly won’t”.

Mrs Badenoch added: “Today the Prime Minister refused to back his Chancellor, leaving her humiliated.

“She is the human shield for his expensive U-turns. How can anyone be a chancellor for a man who doesn’t know what he believes and who changes his mind every other minute?”