22/03/2025

The Week in Westminster

BBC

Government

4.2 • 239 Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ben Riley-Smith of The Daily Telegraph assesses the latest developments at Westminster.

After the government announced savings of £5bn a year from the benefits bill, Ben speaks to Labour MP Clive Lewis, who raised concerns about the plans in the Commons, and David Blunkett, formerly a Cabinet minister under Tony Blair and now a Labour peer.

Also this week Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch ditched her party's commitment to make Britain a 'net zero' carbon emitter by 2050, a policy first introduced by Theresa May's government in 2019. Conservative MP and former Cabinet minister, David Davis, and former Conservative adviser, Salma Shah, debate the merits of the plan.

Crossbench peer, Minette Batters, who is the former President of the National Farmers Union, joins Ben from her farm in Wiltshire to discuss whether Labour can mend its relationship with farmers.

And, following the visit of the new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Britain, Ben speaks to the former UK High Commissioner to Canada, Susan le Jeune d'Allegeershecque, and Labour MP Matt Western, who chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group on Canada.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.
0:05.1	This is Ben Riley Smith of the Daily Telegraph with The Week in Westminster.
0:09.9	This week saw the latest money-saving move from Sir Keir Starmes' government
0:13.7	as an axe was taken to the welfare budget.
0:17.2	On Tuesday, it was announced that £5 billion would be saved, in part from making it harder for some people to claim disability benefits.
0:26.0	The change was announced with UNF by Liz Kendall, the Work and Pension Secretary, who argued it was all about helping people get back into work.
0:33.8	We believe in the value and potential of every single person, that we all have something
0:40.2	positive to contribute and can make a difference, whether that's in paid work, in our families
0:46.0	or communities alongside our neighbours and friends. We will unleash this potential in every corner
0:52.7	of the land because we are as ambitious for the British
0:56.3	people as they are for themselves. Today we take decisive action and I commend this statement
1:03.0	to the House. But the changes split the Labour Party, with many MPs on the left voicing
1:10.2	discomfort at removing payments
1:12.0	from some of the neediest in society.
1:14.7	Diane Abbott, who some in Secure Circle attempted to block from even standing at the last election,
1:19.9	rose to make that point in Prime Minister's questions.
1:22.6	There is nothing moral about cutting benefits for what may be up to a million people.
1:34.2	This is not about morality.
1:36.2	This is about the Treasury's wish to balance the country's books on the back of the most vulnerable and poor people in this
1:50.3	society. All this comes ahead of the spring statement on Wednesday when Chancellor Rachel
1:56.6	Reeves is set to unveil even more spending restraint as economic forecasts worsen. So,
2:02.4	with the benefit cuts justified, and if not, what the critics proposed doing about the soaring
	...

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