22/11/2025
The Week in Westminster
BBC
4.0 • 258 Ratings
🗓️ 22 November 2025
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With just days to go to Rachel Reeves' Budget, George Parker speaks to her Conservative predecessor at the Treasury, Sir Jeremy Hunt MP. They discuss what it's like for Chancellors in the run-up to a fiscal event and the intense speculation around this Budget.
Following the publication of the Covid Inquiry's second report George interviews former minister, Lord Frost, who resigned from the then Conservative government over pandemic policy, and Prof Stephen Reicher, who advised both the UK and Scottish governments during the pandemic.
To discuss the Home Secretary's overhaul of the asylum system, and the divisions within her party, George speaks to Labour MPs Olivia Blake and Gareth Snell.
And, as the London Aquarium responds to concerns raised by a number of MPs over the welfare of its penguins, George speaks to one of those MPs, Danny Chambers, and New Statesman journalist, Rachel Cunliffe.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.5 | This is George Parker with The Week in Westminster. |
| 0:09.1 | There was a bit of everything in Westminster this week. |
| 0:12.1 | The Health of the Economy, as Rachel Reeves put the finishing touches to a slightly |
| 0:16.3 | chaotic budget. |
| 0:18.1 | The Health of the Nation, with the publication of a major report on the political response to COVID, and the health of the nation, with the publication of a major report on the political |
| 0:22.1 | response to COVID and the health of our society, as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood |
| 0:28.0 | unveiled a controversial set of measures intended to calm growing tensions over immigration. |
| 0:34.4 | Oh yes, and MPs were also concerned about the well-being of penguins in the London Aquarium. |
| 0:40.2 | There's a lot to get through, but let's start with the budgets. |
| 0:43.4 | We'll finally see what's inside the famous Red Box next Wednesday. |
| 0:47.7 | But an irate common speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, felt like he'd read about most of it already in a series of leaks. |
| 0:54.5 | Can I just say it isn't normal for a budget to have been put in the press. |
| 0:59.4 | It's the OK OKCookie budget. |
| 1:01.0 | One minute's in, next minute's out. |
| 1:02.6 | I am very worried, like the previous government, which also had to be reprimanded for pulling leaks out. |
| 1:09.6 | It is not good policy. |
| 1:11.2 | One story in particular, reported by my paper The Financial Times, was seized on by Conservative |
| 1:16.5 | leader Kemi Badenock at Prime Minister's questions, as evidence that Rachel Reeves's |
| 1:20.9 | budget was turning into a bit of a shambles before it's even delivered. |
| 1:25.2 | Two weeks ago, the Chancellor called a ridiculous press conference |
| 1:29.2 | to blame everyone else for her having to raise income tax. |
... |
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