Nicholas Joicey has spent 30 years in Whitehall managing billions in public spending, writing speeches for Gordon Brown, and avoiding headlines. Then he married Rachel Reeves.
When she became Britain’s first female Chancellor in July 2024, he was already a Second Permanent Secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. By January 2025, he had moved to Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government as interim Chief Operating Officer. The timing created distance from Westminster just as scrutiny of the couple intensified.
In October 2025, it emerged their south London home lacked the required selective licence from Southwark Council. The couple earns about £74,000 annually from two rental properties while living rent-free in Downing Street. Conservative MPs called for investigations. Published emails showed their letting agent had promised to handle the paperwork. An employee left. Nobody followed up.
For someone whose career depended on getting administrative details right, it looked careless. For a Chancellor who had raised stamp duty on landlords a year earlier, it looked worse.
Table of Contents
The Licensing Mess
Southwark Council requires private landlords to obtain selective licences costing £945. The property didn’t have one.
Email exchanges released by Reeves showed what went wrong. On 17 July 2024, letting agent Harvey & Wheeler wrote to Joicey: “Once we have that to hand we will need to apply for a licence under the Selective Licensing Scheme via Southwark Council.”
The agent followed up on 22 July asking if they should arrange it after tenants moved in. Joicey replied on 13 August: “Yes please, do go ahead and arrange the PAT test and the Selective Licence.”
The property manager handling the application left suddenly. Harvey & Wheeler’s owner Gareth Martin later apologised for the “oversight”, noting they don’t normally apply for licences on clients’ behalf but had offered to help.
The Negotiator reported that Knight Frank had also warned the couple about licensing requirements before they chose Harvey & Wheeler. Two agencies told them. The licence still wasn’t obtained.
Reeves had delivered her first Budget in autumn 2024, raising stamp duty surcharge on additional properties from 3% to 5%. By the time the licensing issue became public a year later, Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty asked: “Having just announced a deeply unpopular Budget that has caused mortgages to rise, how does the Chancellor justify the £74,000 rental income of her and her husband’s London properties whilst living rent-free in Downing Street?”
The Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards reviewed the case and took no further action. Southwark Council declined to investigate. Reeves accepted “full responsibility” while the agent carried the blame.
From Grimsby to the Treasury
Joicey grew up in North Yorkshire. His parents, Harold Beverley and Wendy Joicey, raised him in Guisborough before he attended Wintringham School in Grimsby. At Bristol University he studied history, then earned a PhD from Cambridge’s Peterhouse College in 1995. His thesis examined the intellectual, political and cultural significance of Penguin Books between 1935 and 1956. He published an article on the subject in Twentieth Century British History in 1993.
After covering politics and economics at The Observer in 1995-96, he joined HM Treasury in the late 1990s. By 1999, at 29, he was writing speeches for Chancellor Gordon Brown. The job put him in the room when Labour made economic decisions during its first term. From 2001 to 2003, Joicey led the UK delegation to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Washington. Rachel Reeves worked there too, analysing the US economy for the Bank of England. They married in 2012 and had two children, Anna (2013) and Harold (2015).
Building a Whitehall Career
After Washington, Joicey ran the EU policy team at the Treasury before directing international finance. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs appointed him Director General for Strategy, International and Biosecurity in January 2014. He handled Brexit-related negotiations on environmental standards and biosecurity. The Queen’s 2019 Birthday Honours made him a Companion of the Order of the Bath for environmental work.
He moved to the Department for Work and Pensions as Director General for Finance in July 2018, managing one of Whitehall’s largest budgets during the troubled Universal Credit rollout. Overseeing billions in welfare payments meant navigating operational failures and public criticism.
In September 2022, the Cabinet Office brought him in as Director General for Economic and Domestic Secretariat, coordinating policy across government departments. He returned to DEFRA as Second Permanent Secretary and Group Chief Operating Officer in July 2023. His salary sat in the £170,000 to £174,999 band.
From July through December 2024, he took leave from DEFRA. No official explanation appeared. In January 2025, Oxford announced him as interim Chief Operating Officer at the Blavatnik School of Government for a one-year secondment.
The Chancellor’s Husband
Labour’s election victory in 2024 made Reeves the first female Chancellor in Britain’s 800-year history. The couple moved into Downing Street, and their financial arrangements immediately attracted scrutiny.
Joicey has rented his central London flat since 2011, now earning about £3,000 monthly. The family home in south London brings in roughly £3,200 monthly. Combined rental income runs about £74,000 annually, more than four times the average landlord earns and double the UK average salary.
The Telegraph reported that having the Chancellor’s husband running operations at DEFRA raised questions about conflicts of interest.
His Oxford appointment came nine months after Labour took office. Conservative journalist Peter Oborne defended his record, pointing out that civil servants serve whichever government holds power. Oborne wrote that working for Gordon Brown meant serving the government of the day, not the Labour Party specifically.
The rental scandal broke ten months into his Oxford posting.
After Oxford
Joicey serves as trustee of the Cambridge Film Trust and has chaired the Finance and Investment Committee at Bristol University since January 2019. At Oxford’s Blavatnik School, he oversees operations and works with the Dean on institutional strategy.
The secondment runs through January 2026. He could return to DEFRA, take another government role, or stay in academia. At 55, he has options. The rental controversy and ongoing political pressure on his wife complicate all of them.
When Prime Minister Keir Starmer refused to confirm whether Reeves would remain Chancellor until the next election during PMQs in July 2025, she was photographed wiping away tears. Her sister Ellie Reeves, also an MP, held her hand as they left the chamber.
For 30 years, civil service work meant operating quietly. Write the words others speak. Manage the budgets others debate. Shape the policies others announce. Stay out of the news.
Being married to the Chancellor ended that. Every financial decision gets examined. Every property transaction becomes a story. Every career move raises questions.
The man who helped write Gordon Brown’s Treasury speeches now finds his own emails published by the BBC. Whether he can return to working in the background remains unclear.
Information compiled from official government records, BBC reporting and parliamentary disclosures.
