Is Government About to Cut Welfare Spending?
Newscast
BBC
4.3 • 6.6K Ratings
🗓️ 5 March 2025
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today, we discuss the Chancellor Rachel Reeves looking at making spending cuts worth billions to the government’s welfare budget.
The Treasury will put the proposed cuts to the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) on Wednesday amid expectations the chancellor's financial headroom has disappeared. Adam is joined by economics editor Faisal Islam to unpack what we know about the proposed cuts, and the chancellor’s Spring Statement later this month.
And, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has spoken to the Nick Robinson in his first wide-ranging interview since leaving Downing Street. Nick and Adam unpack what Rishi had to say, including why he regrets the ‘Stop the Boats’ slogan, how he felt about a podcast questioning his Englishness and what his political philosophy boils down to.
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Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Shiler Mahmoudi and Anna Harris. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | Hello, on Tuesday night in London, there was a big charity event, which is basically a big pub quiz for journalists. |
| 0:12.0 | And loads of different broadcasters and different programmes take part in this quiz. |
| 0:16.5 | And unfortunately, my team did not win, but we were the highest ranking team from the BBC, |
| 0:23.2 | which means I beat the team that had Nick Robinson on it, representing the Radio 4 news programs, |
| 0:29.2 | and I beat a team of BBC editors who were being helped by Faisal Islam, the economics editor. |
| 0:35.3 | So that's my claim to fame. |
| 0:37.3 | However, those two have beaten me |
| 0:39.8 | in the actual journalistic stakes because Faisal's got a great bit of intel about what's going on |
| 0:45.3 | with the public finances and what that means for Rachel Reeves's spring economic statement, |
| 0:50.6 | which is doing in a couple of weeks' time, which could have big political reverberations for the rest of the year. And Nick Robinson has secured the return of Rishi Sunak. The former |
| 1:00.1 | Prime Minister has sat down and done a two-hour-long interview for Nick's podcast. So to make |
| 1:06.4 | up for beating them in the pub quiz amongst journalists, I'm going to invite both of them on to this |
| 1:10.2 | episode of Newscast so they can tell us about their scoops. Newscast from the BBC. I like |
| 1:16.5 | landscapes. I don't think I'm being rude. Japping, unemployed people who are overweight. That is not |
| 1:21.4 | the agenda. It's the fun police working overtime. The star is born, Elon. So hurt that America let this happen. |
| 1:28.5 | Frankly, I think we need a British Trump. |
| 1:30.4 | Take me down to Downey Street. |
| 1:32.1 | Let's go have a tour. |
| 1:33.7 | Blimey. |
| 1:35.2 | Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio. |
| 1:37.3 | And shortly we'll cross over to Westminster to speak to Nick Robinson to hear about |
... |
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