'Build Baby Build': The new housing secretary, Steve Reed
Political Thinking with Nick Robinson
BBC
4.6 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 12 September 2025
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Steve Reed was given the job of Housing Secretary as the result of crisis, after the resignation of his close friend Angela Rayner.
But he has been part of the inner circle preparing Keir Starmer's rise to power from the beginning, having recruited the man who ended up as the prime minister's Chief of Staff.
In this interview, he gives Nick a behind-the-scenes account of coming to power and the "whirlwind" of an emergency reshuffle.
They also discuss how to reconnect with the voters, putting up flags and who he'll have to fight to succeed in building the homes that Labour has promised
Producer: Daniel Kraemer Researcher: Chloe Desave Sound editing: Hal Haines Editor: Giles Edwards
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.1 | Hello, welcome to political thinking. |
| 0:07.7 | My guest this week helped to pick out Kyr Starmer as someone who could take over the Labour Party after the Corbyn years. |
| 0:15.8 | He introduced the Prime Minister to his political guru, now his Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney. |
| 0:22.7 | Steve Reid has just replaced Angela Rainer as housing secretary in a reshuffle forced by her resignation, |
| 0:29.6 | which has come as Labour desperately searches to find a way to persuade angry voters |
| 0:34.3 | that they can and will deliver the change they promised at that general election |
| 0:39.7 | just over a year ago. Steve Reid has already echoed Donald Trump's rhetoric by promising to |
| 0:46.5 | build baby build. The former leader of Lambeth Council is someone who relishes a political |
| 0:52.9 | fight to secure power there. |
| 0:55.7 | He fought those the press dubbed the Looney Left and the rise of the far right. |
| 1:01.8 | Steve Reed, Housing Secretary, welcome back to political thinking. |
| 1:05.0 | Good to be here. |
| 1:06.6 | Where were you when you heard the news that you were in fact going to be promoted? |
| 1:11.9 | Well, when I heard that there was a reshuffle on, I just met with my constituency team in a coffee shop |
| 1:18.3 | up in Crystal Palace. I just arrived. The phone went. We'd sat down, I think for about a minute or two. |
| 1:24.6 | And I stood up and said, there's a reshuffle. I better go back. We don't know what's |
| 1:28.4 | going to happen. Went back to the house and I did just wait by the phone. And that is what goes on. |
| 1:35.6 | It is the old cliche, isn't it, waiting by the phone, which seems an odd thing now that we all have |
| 1:38.9 | phones in our pockets. But there is that sense of just waiting to see if it goes. |
| 1:42.6 | The security of the armchair in my bedroom is where I was. I had assumed, you see, that we'd be called in. So I'd have to be at home to get in a suit. It's going to go into Downing Street. I didn't want to be in my civvies. But it was done by phone anyway. I got a call switchboard at number 10 put through the prime minister. He was kind |
| 2:01.5 | enough to offer me this job and I was delighted. Yeah. Surprise? Well, it was a bit, so the whole |
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