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Hello, and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Hill and I'm joined today by Katie Balls and Kate Andrews.

Now, today, Katie, the big story in Whitehall is about the preparation stepping up for the spending review.

Rachel Reeves has written to all the government ministers. Tell us more.

Yes, so spending review is due for June and what we have is quite an official start from the government because often it leaks out

through various letters to ministers on these things. So I think there's been a bit of a more

purposeful effort within number 11 and the Treasury to try and say, this is our spending review,

look at us and these are the terms on which we will be taking part in obviously working out

the budget for several years to

come. Now, in terms of what the government wants to say about the spending review, the Chancellor has

said there will be a crackdown on government waste, that they will be ensuring key public services

can be prioritised for funding. And I think in the sign of an attempt to have more joined up

thinking around government,

there's links to the speech we had last week and the six milestones. Also, of course, we have

the emissions and so forth. But the general sense is they want money for the things that are government's

priority. And therefore, your department has something that does not link directly to a government priority,

it's going to be a lot harder to get the cash.

There's not a particularly novel concept.

It's obviously harder to do in action.

But it means that when you're looking at where the government is going to be prioritising

where the money goes, clean energy, NHS.

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