29/03/2025

The Week in Westminster

BBC

Government

4.2 • 239 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Pippa Crerar assesses the latest developments at Westminster.

The Chancellor Rachel Reeves unveiled her Spring Statement this week and Pippa takes a closer look at the details with the chair of the Treasury Select Committee, Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier and the Conservative frontbencher and former Treasury minister, Dame Harriett Baldwin.

Also this week, Keir Starmer travelled to Paris for the latest meeting of the ‘coalition of the willing’. Labour’s Dame Emily Thornberry, who chairs the Foreign Affairs select committee discusses this with the Liberal Democrat MP Mike Martin, a former British army officer who served multiple tours in Afghanistan.

Reform UK's deputy leader, Richard Tice, who represents Boston and Skegness and Times columnist Fraser Nelson discuss the party's coming electoral test in the local elections.

And, following comments by the technology secretary Peter Kyle that the UK will see its first ever space launch this year, Pippa speaks to the physicist and broadcaster Professor Brian Cox about the benefits of space exploration.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.0	This is Pippa Carrera from The Guardian, with The Week in Westminster.
0:09.8	After weeks of speculation over the state of the nation's finances
0:13.5	and whether there would be any rays of sunshine breaking through the fiscal gloom,
0:18.5	Rachel Reeves finally unveiled her spring statement this week.
0:22.0	While the Chancellor pulled a rabbit out of the hat on growth,
0:25.3	forecast to be slightly stronger than expected in the years ahead,
0:28.7	economists warned that there may have to be more tax rises in the autumn.
0:33.3	There was also consternation in the labour ranks over deep welfare cuts
0:37.3	which could drive thousands of vulnerable people into poverty.
0:41.6	And overshadowing it all was the uncertainty over Donald Trump's plans for global trade tariffs.
0:47.8	Due to come into force next week, they could wipe out any progress made on the economy in one fell swoop.
0:54.7	As she took to her feet in the Commons on Wednesday, the Chancellor warned MPs that global
0:59.3	uncertainty meant the government would have to make some tough decisions.
1:03.0	The world is changing. We can see that and we can feel it.
1:09.1	A changing world demands a government that is on the side of working people.
1:13.7	Acting in their interest.
1:16.1	Acting in the national interest.
1:19.5	Not retreating from challenges.
1:22.2	Not stepping back.
1:24.2	But a government with a courage to step up.
1:28.3	Mail Stride, the shadow chancellor, responded for the Tories.
	...

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