Rachel Reeves has insisted she is “cracking on with the job” following her tearful appearance in the House of Commons.
However, the Chancellor refused to be drawn on the “personal matter” which had upset her ahead of Prime Minister’s Questions.
Ms Reeves was speaking to press as she and Sir Keir Starmer visited a health centre in London to launch the UK Government’s new NHS plan for England.
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Ms Reeves was visibly emotional during the Commons session on Wednesday, when Sir Keir failed to answer a question from Kemi Badenoch about whether the Chancellor would still be in post at the next election.
It followed the chaos on Tuesday night, when a last-minute U-turn by the government gutted their flagship welfare reforms.
The scrapping of changes to eligibility for the personal independence payment just 90 minutes before MPs voted, has left Ms Reeves with a £5bn black hole in her spending plans.
That in turn has fuelled speculation that to fill the gap she will need to either hike taxes, find further cuts or abandon her fiscal rules.
At the event, Sir Keir praised his Chancellor and defended not comforting her.
The Prime Minister told reporters he had not “appreciated” that Ms Reeves was crying behind him during PMQs as the session was “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,” he said.
Sir Keir added: “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.”
Speculation about Ms Reeves’s future and the prospect of a new Chancellor spooked the markets, with the pound slumping by 1.14% to 1.358 against the US dollar, and by 0.8% to 1.155 against the euro. The yield on Government bonds jumped.
Reports suggested the Chancellor had been involved in an altercation with Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle shortly before PMQs.
There were also claims she had a bust-up with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, though both have been denied.
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When asked if she was surprised the Prime Minister had not backed her at PMQs, Ms Reeves said: “I think that people can see that Keir and me are a team.
“We fought the election together, we changed the Labour Party together so that we could be in the position to return to power.
“Over the past year we’ve worked in lockstep together whether that is on the budget, on the spending review or indeed on our measures to improve public services like the ten-year plan for the NHS.
“I totally am up for the job. This is the job that I’ve always wanted to do. I’m proud of what I’ve delivered as Chancellor. Look, I think all of your viewers have had tough days. I happen to be on camera when I have a tough day.”
She told broadcasters: “Clearly I was upset yesterday and everyone could see that. It was a personal issue and I’m not going to go into the details of that.
“My job as Chancellor at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday is to be at PMQs next to the Prime Minister, supporting the Government, and that’s what I tried to do.
“I guess the thing that maybe is a bit different between my job and many of your viewers’ is that when I’m having a tough day it’s on the telly and most people don’t have to deal with that.”
The Chancellor rejected suggestions her tears were related to a conversation with the Speaker or another Government colleague.
“People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday. Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job,” she said.
