Rachel Blake was elected Labour and Co-operative MP for Cities of London and Westminster on 4 July 2024 with 15,302 votes (39.0 percent) and a majority of 2,708 (6.9 percent), defeating Conservative Nickie Aiken. On 14 May 2026 she was appointed Economic Secretary to the Treasury and City Minister. The MP for the constituency that contains the City of London is now the minister responsible for the City of London's financial services sector, an alignment of constituency and ministerial brief that is unique in the current government.

Born in Manchester and educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and the London School of Economics, she worked on planning reform at the Treasury and in housing strategy and regeneration before local government, then served ten years on Tower Hamlets Council from 2014, joining the cabinet in 2015 as cabinet member for strategic development and serving as Deputy Mayor under John Biggs from 2018 to 2022. She was selected for this seat in July 2022, two years before the election, giving her an unusually long run in.

Since entering Parliament she has sat on the Treasury Committee, the House of Commons Commission, and the Renters' Rights Bill committee. Her City Minister brief covers financial services policy and regulation, the FCA and PRA relationships, financial stability, and the competitiveness and growth of the financial services sector. She replaced Lucy Rigby, who was promoted to Chief Secretary to the Treasury; earlier City Ministers include Tulip Siddiq, who resigned in January 2025 amid corruption allegations, and Emma Reynolds.

She has campaigned hardest on the short term lets crisis in her constituency, publishing a detailed series documenting 117,000 short term lets listed across London, and on St Mary's Hospital investment, anti corruption ("making London the anti corruption capital of the world"), neighbourhood policing and e bike regulation.

Blake's strengths include Cambridge and LSE education, ten years as a Tower Hamlets councillor with cabinet and deputy mayor experience, a Treasury planning reform background, the unique constituency ministerial alignment as City Minister for the City of London, House of Commons Commission membership, the Treasury Committee, and specific housing and anti corruption campaigns. Her weaknesses include a 2,708 majority making this one of the most vulnerable government ministerial seats in the country, no legislative achievement yet bearing her name, a profile built on Tower Hamlets council work rather than City of London experience, and the structural pressure of being the financial regulators' political boss while representing the financial sector's physical home. With Cambridge, the LSE, a decade of council executive experience, and now the City Minister role, she has one of the most precisely aligned careers in the current government. Whether the 2,708 majority survives the next election while she regulates the financial sector from the constituency it inhabits is the question that will define her career.