THE UKRAINE CRISIS HITS HOME

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 11 March 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The war in Ukraine shows no sign of easing, and its impact is being felt across UK government. What will it mean for bills if Russian energy imports are cut off? And why is the Home Office making such a mess of the Ukraine refugee crisis? Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies and Sunday Times columnist, joins the pod team to discuss. And a new IfG report looks back at the last crisis, which saw a lack of accountability and blame-gaming mark central government’s relationship with public bodies during the pandemic. So what went wrong and what needs to be done to get it right next time? We speak to the report author. Presented by Catherine Haddon, with Giles Wilkes, Jill Rutter and Matthew Gill. Produced by Candice McKenzie. “The problem with energy is that you can’t conjure it into being” – Robert Colvile “Net zero commitments are just going to be parked in a lot of countries while we deal with this crisis” – Robert Colvile “Lord knows how the internal economy of Russia works right now” – Giles Wilkes “I’m still recovering my morale … I might own a little bit of Chelsea” – Giles Wilkes “The Home Office is fundamentally a department of control – it’s lagging very badly” – Jill Rutter “It’s not an accident that the phrase ‘not fit for purpose’ was coined about the Home Office” – Robert Colvile Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing the podcast of the Institute for Government.
0:14.2	I'm Catherine Haddon, senior fellow at the Institute.
0:17.5	The Ukraine crisis is well into its second week and shows no sign of easing.
0:21.6	Ukraine's President Zelenskyy made an impassioned speech via video link to MPs this week in voting for Churchill,
0:29.6	quoting Shakespeare and urging the West to provide more support to his embattled nation.
0:34.6	For now, however, no-fly zones, even a supply of Polish planes, are off the
0:39.9	table with support focused on ever-harsher sanctions and united efforts to squeeze Russia's economy.
0:46.4	Britain and the US have moved together to ban imports of Russian oil, but what means for how we
0:52.2	heat our homes and how much we need to pay to heat them?
0:56.7	Meanwhile, the UK is coming under big pressure to welcome more of the hundreds of thousands of
1:01.5	refugees fleeing Ukraine. The home office has been criticised for a foot-dragging response.
1:07.4	What's gone wrong? What needs to change? We'll take a look. And as war rages in Europe,
1:13.0	the pandemic is beginning to seem like a distant memory. But with an inquiry soon underway,
1:18.3	the successes and failures of the UK's response will be raked over in detail. A new IFG report
1:24.5	takes a closer look at the work of arms-length bodies, that's outfits like
1:27.9	Public Health England and how they worked during the pandemic. We'll talk to the report's author
1:32.9	about what went wrong, what went right and what needs to happen next. Joining me in the
1:37.6	IFG studio are two IFG senior fellows and two alumni of number 10 who have been playing close
1:43.4	attention to how the Treasury
1:45.0	and Home Office have been handling the impact of events in Ukraine. Firstly, Charles Wilts,
1:49.9	hello, Charles. Hi there, Kath. How are things? Very good, thank you. And Jill Rutter joins me
1:55.9	as well. Hello, Jill. Hello, Cass. And I'm delighted to be joined by Robert Colville, Sunday Times columnist and director of the Centre for Policy Studies. Hi, Robert. How are you?
	...

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