Child benefit cap, Prof Edith Heard, Book banning

Woman's Hour

BBC

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.2 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More than 100 Labour MPs are calling this morning for the Government to put up gambling taxes to pay for scrapping the two child cap on universal credit. Lifting the cap would cost an estimated £3 billion a year. Chancellor Rachel Reeves already has a £20 to £30 billion deficit to try and balance in the November budget. So, should she do it? Anita Rani talks to Iain Watson, BBC Political Correspondent, and Director of policy, rights and advocacy at Child Poverty Action Group, Sara Ogilvie.

Professor Edith Heard is the new Director of the Francis Crick Institute, the UK’s flagship biomedical centre. Passionate about women’s biology, she's taking over at a time when debates over science seem to get hotter by the day. Resources are under strain too, not just money in the midst of high inflation but also the pressure to keep the best scientists working here in the UK. She tells Woman’s Hour about how she got here and her plans for the future.

The Librarians is a new documentary examining the rise of campaign groups calling to ban books from school and public libraries in the USA. Anita talks to film maker Kym Snyder and librarian Amanda Jones.

Oyinkan Braithwaite’s debut novel My Sister the Serial Killer was nominated for the Women’s and Booker prizes in 2019. Now she’s back with another novel on similarly dark themes but explored in a markedly different way. Cursed Daughters is about a legacy of heartache and broken relationships that comes to define one family in Nigeria. She joins Anita.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Corinna Jones

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.
0:05.6	Your time starts now.
0:07.2	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:09.4	Absolutely right.
0:11.5	So, you might like to know that the BBC makes loads of other podcasts.
0:15.6	Really?
0:16.4	Wow.
0:17.2	Many of them are very funny.
0:19.1	Which I think means...
0:20.3	A hatful of ha ha haas.
0:21.7	And energy.
0:40.9	Even if you do say so ourselves. I agree 100% to that. Find them all on BBC Sounds. Just tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Come on. Tell us a joke. Just search comedy on BBC Sounds. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
0:40.8	Good morning. I'm really looking forward to getting stuck in. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4.
0:43.3	Good morning and welcome to the programme.
0:49.7	Professor Edith Hurd, the new director of the Francis Crick Institute, a biomedical research centre in London,
0:56.5	will be telling us all about her job, including looking at the status of women's biological science morning, Edith.
1:03.4	Welcome. A new documentary is shining a light on book banning in parts of America in school libraries. From July 2021 to March 22 alone, there were 1,586 book bans in 86 school districts across 26 states, affecting more than 2 million students.
1:16.6	We'll hear more from the director, Kim Snyder and from Amanda Jones, one of the librarians standing up against the ban, also here this morning. Welcome.
1:25.1	And a yinker, Braithwaite, the author of My Sister, The Serial
1:28.6	Killers, Here to tell us about her new book, Cursed Daughters, about a family of women who believe
1:33.3	they're cursed. It covers big themes, superstition, mental health, intergenerational trauma. A Yinka,
1:38.6	welcome. Thank you. And this morning we're going to take your book as a theme for everyone listening, really, because as you know, normally we like you to get in touch with us about anything you hear on the program, but particularly superstitions.
	...

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