The chancellor has said the budget is “non-negotiable” on a visit to China in the face of volatile markets back in the UK.

Rachel Reeves flew out on Friday after ignoring calls from opposition parties to cancel the long-planned trip because of economic turmoil at home.

The past week has seen a drop in the pound and an increase in government borrowing costs, which has fuelled speculation of more spending cuts or tax rises.

The Tories have accused the chancellor of having “fled to China” rather than explain how she will fix the UK’s flatlining economy, while the Liberal Democrats say she should stay in Britain and announce a “plan B” to address market volatility.

Former prime minister Boris Johnson said Ms Reeves had “been rumbled” and said she should “make her way to HR and collect her P45 – or stay in China”.

However, during a visit to Beijing’s flagship store of UK bike maker Brompton, Ms Reeves said she would not alter her economic plans, with the October budget designed to return the UK to economic stability.

“Growth is the number one mission of this government,” she said.

“The fiscal rules laid out in the budget are non-negotiable. Economic stability is the bedrock for economic growth and prosperity.”

The treasury added that making Britain better off will be at the “forefront of the chancellor’s mind” during her visit.

She said that “action” will be taken to meet the fiscal rules. That action is reported to include deeper spending cuts than the 5% efficiency savings already expected to be announced later this year, while cuts to the welfare bill are also said to be under consideration.

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The chancellor is being accompanied by Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey and other senior executives.

She met her counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, in Beijing on Saturday to discuss financial services, trade and investment, before heading to Shanghai for talks with representatives across British and Chinese businesses.

She will also “raise difficult issues”, including Chinese firms supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and concerns over constraints on rights and freedoms in Hong Kong, the Treasury said.

But it did not mention whether Ms Reeves would raise the treatment of the Uyghur community, which Downing Street said Foreign Secretary David Lammy would do during his visit last year.

On Friday, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy defended the trip, telling Sky News that the climbing cost of government borrowing was a “global trend” that had affected many countries, “most notably the United States”.

“We are still on track to be the fastest growing economy, according to the OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] in Europe,” she told Anna Jones on Sky News Breakfast.

“China is the second-largest economy, and what China does has the biggest impact on people from Stockton to Sunderland, right across the UK, and it’s absolutely essential that we have a relationship with them.”

Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China

Grim economic news raises stakes for embattled chancellor’s controversial China trip

Amanda Akass

Political correspondent

@amandaakass

Rachel Reeves’s trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 – was always going to be controversial.

In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm’s length – amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs.

David Cameron’s so-called “Golden Era” of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping – has been widely written off as a naive mistake.

There are many – not least the incoming US President Donald Trump – who believe we should maintain our distance.

But in another era of economic turmoil, the pursuit of growth is the government’s number one priority.

This week’s difficult market news – with the cost of government borrowing surging, and the value of the pound falling – has thoroughly raised the stakes.

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It is the first UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) since 2019, building on the Labour government’s plan for a “pragmatic” policy with the world’s second-largest economy.

Sir Keir Starmer was the first British prime minister to meet with China’s President Xi Jinping in six years at the G20 summit in Brazil last autumn.

Relations between the UK and China have become strained over the last decade as the Conservative government spoke out against human rights abuses and concerns grew over national security risks.

Navigating this has proved tricky given China is the UK’s fourth largest single trading partner, with a trade relationship worth almost £113bn and exports to China supporting over 455,000 jobs in the UK in 2020, according to the government.

During the Tories’ 14 years in office, the approach varied dramatically from the “golden era” under David Cameron to hawkish aggression under Liz Truss, while Rishi Sunak vowed to be “robust” but resisted pressure from his own party to brand China a threat.

The Treasury said a stable relationship with China would support economic growth and that “making working people across Britain secure and better off is at the forefront of the chancellor’s mind”.

Ahead of her visit, Ms Reeves said: “By finding common ground on trade and investment, while being candid about our differences and upholding national security as the first duty of this government, we can build a long-term economic relationship with China that works in the national interest.”

Rachel Reeves’s trip to China – the first by a British chancellor since 2019 – was always going to be controversial.

In recent years Conservative governments have been keeping Beijing at arm’s length – amid concern about espionage, the situation in Hong Kong, and the treatment of the Uyghurs.

David Cameron‘s so-called “Golden Era” of engagement in the pursuit of economic investment, notoriously capped by a visit to an Oxfordshire pub for a pint with President Xi Jinping – has been widely written off as a naive mistake.

There are many – not least the incoming US President Donald Trump – who believe we should maintain our distance.

But in another era of economic turmoil, the pursuit of growth is the government’s number one priority.

This week’s difficult market news – with the cost of government borrowing surging, and the value of the pound falling – has thoroughly raised the stakes.

Both the Tories and the Lib Dems argued the visit should be cancelled.

Prominent China hawk and former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith MP summed up both arguments against it.

“The trip is pointless,” he wrote on X. “As the disastrous ‘Golden Era’ showed, the murderous, brutal, law-breaking, communist regime in China will not deliver the growth the Labour government craves.

“Instead, she should stay home and try to sort out the awful mess her budget has created.”

Yet cancelling the trip would have been a diplomatic disaster and far from adding to economic stability would surely have spread a sense of crisis (with inevitable comparisons to Denis Healey’s abandoned visit to Hong Kong in 1976, months before he was forced to apply from an emergency loan from the IMF to save the pound from collapse).

Instead, the government argues the current market situation is a result of “global trends”, and Reeves insists she will be sticking to the decisions taken in the budget.

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“Growth is the number one mission of this government. The fiscal rules laid out in the budget are non-negotiable. Economic stability is the bedrock for economic growth and prosperity.”

Improving the UK/China relationship should “boost our economic growth for the benefit of working people in both of our countries” she said during her meeting with vice premier He Lifeng.

In a speech to media afterwards, Reeves was delighted to announce a big, concrete number to justify the value of the trip, claiming the agreements reached would be worth £600m to the UK economy over five years.

Pragmatism is the new order of the day. Labour argues re-establishing “pragmatic engagement” with China is in the national interest, and it’s a word Reeves used four times in five minutes during her speech.

Ed Conway analysis: The chancellor’s gamble with China

The government insists this new closer relationship will make it easier for them to raise tricky issues and we did hear the chancellor flagging concerns about Hong Kong and the role of China in connection with Russia’s war in Ukraine – though not the Uyghurs, or the imprisoned British citizen and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.

The challenge going forward will be to show that cosying up to China is worth it.

There’s a lot riding on it for the chancellor – with questions being openly asked about her economic strategy given the growing likelihood that to meet her fiscal rules on balancing tax and spending she will be forced to make deep cuts to government departments this spring.

We are promised a big speech from the chancellor on the government’s plans for growth in the coming weeks.

In many ways, the trip to China may have been a welcome break from the difficult decisions which await her return.

Former Manchester United footballer David May has shared his fears about developing dementia – and the impact that would have on his family.

It comes after the ex-footballer revealed David Windass, the former Hull City, Bradford City and Middlesbrough striker, has been diagnosed with stage two dementia.

During the early stages of dementia, people show a very mild cognitive decline, including occasional memory loss and struggles finding words, according to Dementia UK.

May shared 55-year-old Windass’s diagnosis – with his permission – during a BBC Breakfast interview.

“I actually said, ‘Would you mind if I mentioned it?’ And he went, ‘No. 100% – you mention it. Get it out there’. Not to put Deano under the spotlight, but the issue,” he told Sky News’ sports correspondent Rob Harris.

“I’d hate my children to go through that, knowing their dad doesn’t know them, doesn’t recognise them, can’t speak to them. It’s tragic.”

May, a defender with United’s 1999 treble-winning team, also revealed he is worried about his long-term health.

“Ask me would I do it again? Football? 100% – because I love football. It’s my life,” the 54-year-old said.

“Would I have done as many headers through training, and continuously heading in training? Maybe not.

“But I have just got to wait and see. It’s a waiting game. Are you going to be the one that’s going to miss it?

“One in three-and-a-half people will get dementia who have become professional footballers.”

Asked if he thought heading would eventually be banned, he said: “No, I don’t think you need to eradicate heading. It’s part of the game, and you don’t want to take that out of the game.

“It has been an incredible, and still is a wonderful, wonderful game.

“But maybe the amount of headers you do in training can change.

“I know that before, probably 15, 20 times, you’d head a ball in training. And then on a Friday you’d go through it to get your timings right, maybe another five or six before the game starts, and then all the heading in games.

“It’s a lot. It’s a hell of a lot of headers in a footballer’s career.”

May has joined campaigners pushing for more help for footballers affected by neurodegenerative diseases.

The diagnosis at such a young age for Windass has brought home the reality that this remains a major problem in football.

“It’s not going to go away. Day in, day out, players are heading the balls in games, and you know, are they aware of it? Probably not,” said May.

“We need to keep fighting for the right answers and the right funds.”

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the Mayor of the Liverpool City Region Steve Rotheram have given their backing to the cause.

The Football Families for Justice (FFJ) campaign has the support of former England captain David Beckham, and is now seeking to secure an amendment to the Football Governance Bill which would give the independent regulator the power to make it a statutory duty on the football authorities to develop a comprehensive dementia strategy, including a care fund agreed with affected players and their families.

“When you think of how much money comes into the Premier League now, it’s billions,” said May.

“It’s a pittance what they could donate to these lads who drastically need help and care.”

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In addition to funding research, the Football Association is also working to remove deliberate headings from youth football up to under-11s by 2026. It has also introduced rules on high-force headers in training at all levels of adult football to reduce the risks to individuals.