Starmer confirms he wants to ‘take some money out of government’ as part of efficiency drive
Well, that did not really get us very far. Apologies to anyone who feels misled by “grilling” in the headline. We learned very little. After the interview was over, Rachel Burden, the Radio 5 Live presenter, read out some listener reaction, including a message from someone who said: “The country is literally falling apart and Sir Keir is fixated on potholes. I give up.”
But in the interview Keir Starmer did not challenge the claim that some government departments will have to reduce spending. This is what he said when it was put to him that unprotected deparments would face cuts.
We’re looking across the board. We made a budget last year, we made some record investments, and we’re not going to undo that.
So, for example, we’ve got a record amount into the NHS. That’s just delivered five months’ worth of waiting lists coming down – five months in a row during the winter, that’s really good. So we’re not going to alter the basics.
But we are going to look across. And one of the areas that we will be looking at is, can we run the government more efficiently? Can we take some money out of government? And I think we can.
I think we’re essentially asking businesses across the country to be more efficient, to look at AI and tech in the way that they do their business.
I want the same challenge in government, which is, why shouldn’t we be more efficient?
The main budgets that are protected are health, defence, schools and early years. Starmer seemed to be confirming that other departments face cuts.
Key events
If you are wondering why, as an alternative to cutting spending in areas like disability benefits and overseas aids, Rachel Reeves does not just revise her fiscal rules and borrow a bit more, you should read this by Alex Clark and Richard Partington. It explains, with clear, interactive graphics, how government borrowing costs have soared over the past decade, leading to a huge rise in the proportion of government spending going on debt repayments.
Transport secretary Heidi Alexander declines to say Heathrow bosses right to close airport after substation fire
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, was doing an interview round this morning. She may have been hoping to talk about potholes, but mostly she faced questions about the closure of Heathrow on Friday after an electricity substation was knocked out by a fire. Here are some of the main lines from her interviews.
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Alexander said said she would have struggled to sleep if she were running Heathrow airport during last week’s power outage. She was responding to reports that Thomas Woldbye went back to bed after the crisis began late on Thursday night. Asked if she would have done the same, Alexanderm who was in charge of transport in London as a deputy mayor for three years, told LBC:
I’ve had to deal with some pretty stressful situations in my time. I probably would struggle to sleep, to be honest.
But she also stepped back from being explicitly critical of Woldbye’s decision, saying:
It’s my understanding that he placed his chief operating officer in charge. He will have also known that there was going to be a huge number of very difficult decisions the following day.
I’m not going to justify decisions that Heathrow leadership did or didn’t take. I wasn’t sat at the table. I didn’t have the information that he had available to him at that time.
The decision to close the airport on Friday was a decision taken by Heathrow’s management.
Pressed on whether she thought that was the correct decision, she replied:
I don’t have all the information that they had available at the point in time when they made that decision.
In another interview, on BBC Breakfast, asked if she had full confidence in Heathrow management, she replied:
That’s not a matter for me. The individuals who need to ask themselves whether they have full confidence in Heathrow management are the Heathrow board …
Heathrow is a private company. Decisions about the leadership of that company are matters for its own board.
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She said that, although Heathrow had back-up generators, they were “designed to protect the critical systems within the airport not to power the entirety of the airport” because it consumed “roughly the amount of energy that a small city would consume”.
I had a conversation with the chief executive of Heathrow on Friday morning. He told me that whilst there are multiple power supplies into the airport, the fire had created a very significant problem with respect to Terminals 2 and 4 specifically and that there had to be some reconfiguration of power supplies into the airport.
That meant all the systems had to be turned off and all the systems had to be restarted again in a safe way.
There have been a lot of claims recently, in the rightwing papers and on social media, that the government is wasting a fortune on expensive cars for disabled people getting benefits, through the Motability scheme. Archie Bland has a very good explainer setting out how the scheme actually works, and showing why many of these allegations are false or misleading.
Streeting says he wants to boost social care spending as part of 10-year plan for NHS
The forthcoming plan to fix the NHS will see funds allocated to social care, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has suggested. PA Media reports:
Streeting said spending NHS resources “more effectively though social care” will be better for patients and deliver better value for taxpayers.
At present, social care is most often paid for by councils, but thousands of people at any one time are stuck in NHS hospital beds even though they are fit to be discharged.
This is because of delays in arranging social care in local communities, finding spaces in care homes or difficulties in arranging other care.
At any one time, around one in seven hospital beds are taken up by people who could be cared for elsewhere.
Inadequate social care in the community also puts pressure on the NHS, such as through increasing hospital admissions and GP visits.
Speaking to the BBC’s Panorama programme, Streeting suggested he will increase NHS spending on social care but did not say by how much.
He said: “I want to spend more of our resources through social care because it delivers better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers. So I’m convinced that we can spend NHS resources more effectively through social care.”
On the figures involved, he said: “Well, these sorts of discussions are always subject to spending reviews, but the 10-year plan for health will include elements of social care, because the two do have to go hand in hand together.”
Streeting also repeated his belief that the NHS is “also not all about money”.
He said that “you can’t just keep on pouring ever increasing amounts of taxpayers’ money into a system that is not set up to deliver best use of that money and best care for patients and that’s why the system needs to change”.
The forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS will focus on the “three shifts” the government says are needed – moving NHS services towards more community-based care, preventing people getting ill in the first place and better use of digital technology.
Starmer confirms he wants to ‘take some money out of government’ as part of efficiency drive
Well, that did not really get us very far. Apologies to anyone who feels misled by “grilling” in the headline. We learned very little. After the interview was over, Rachel Burden, the Radio 5 Live presenter, read out some listener reaction, including a message from someone who said: “The country is literally falling apart and Sir Keir is fixated on potholes. I give up.”
But in the interview Keir Starmer did not challenge the claim that some government departments will have to reduce spending. This is what he said when it was put to him that unprotected deparments would face cuts.
We’re looking across the board. We made a budget last year, we made some record investments, and we’re not going to undo that.
So, for example, we’ve got a record amount into the NHS. That’s just delivered five months’ worth of waiting lists coming down – five months in a row during the winter, that’s really good. So we’re not going to alter the basics.
But we are going to look across. And one of the areas that we will be looking at is, can we run the government more efficiently? Can we take some money out of government? And I think we can.
I think we’re essentially asking businesses across the country to be more efficient, to look at AI and tech in the way that they do their business.
I want the same challenge in government, which is, why shouldn’t we be more efficient?
The main budgets that are protected are health, defence, schools and early years. Starmer seemed to be confirming that other departments face cuts.
Starmer says he is ‘worried’ about masculinity crisis, but does not think government needs minister for men
Edwards asks masculinity, the Gareth Southgate lecture and the TV show Adolescence.
Starmer says he is “worried” about this.
Southgate’s lecture was “really powerful”, he says.
I do think this is something that we have to take seriously. We have to address. We can’t shrug our shoulders at it.
There’s a reason why the debate has suddenly sparked into life on this and that’s because I think a lot of parents, a lot of people who work with young people at school or elsewhere, recognise that we may have a problem with boys and young men that we need to addres
Q: Who are the male role models?
Starmer says he looks to sport. But he says for pupils it is often people at school.
I always go to sport for this. Footballers, athletes, I think they are role models.
But I also think if you actually ask a young person, they’re more likely to identify somebody who’s in their school, a teacher, or somebody who maybe is a sports coach, something like that.
So we need to make sure that – this is something that dads do, dad would reach for a sort of sporting hero – I think children, young people, are more likely to reach someone closer to them, within their school, within their community.
And that’s, I think, where we need to do some of the work.
Q: Do we need a minister for men?
Starmer says he does not think that is the answer.
And that’s it.
Q: ‘Efficiency’ sounds nebulous. What do these cuts mean?
Starmer says AI can bring huge efficiencies. As an example, he says it makes heart scans quicker and more efficient.
Q: You are betting big on tech.
Starmer says it is going to be transformative.
He recalls speaking to a social worker in this room in No 10 who told him she used AI to organise her notes, meaning she could spend more time talking to clients.
Starmer segues into border control, and says the Border Force is getting new, anti-terrorism style powers, to deal with small boats
He says he does not believe that the gangs running small boats cannot be taken out.
Q: Will some government departments face cuts in the spring statement?
Starmer says the budget last year included record investment, and that will not change.
But the government is looking to see if it can do some things more efficiently.
Starmer says government allocating record amount for pothole repairs
Q: Is this central government taking more control? You could just give councils the money?
Starmer says government used to do that, but councils did not always use the money to repair potholes.
He says people may think this is trivial. But if a driver hits a bad hithole, they could end up with a £600 repair bill for their car.
He says the government is allocating a record amount of money for this.
And there is also a safety issue for cyclists, he says.
Radio 5 Live is playing its interview with Keir Starmer now. Rick Edwards is interviewing him live.
Edwards starts by saying they are in the grand Terracotta room, under a chandelier.
He starts by asking what Starmer is announcing, and Starmer does the pothole spiel. (See 8.27am.)
Keir Starmer faces Radio 5 Live interview as criticism of spring statement plans escalates
Good morning. Keir Starmer will be on Radio 5 Live soon to talk about potholes. The government is promoting a new scheme that involves councils getting extra funding to repair roads, but with the release of cash contingent upon pothole monitoring – authorities having to publish details of the progress they are making. As the Department for Transport explains in a news release:
From mid-April, local authorities in England will start to receive their share of the government’s record £1.6bn highway maintenance funding, including an extra £500m – enough to fill 7 million potholes a year.
But to get the full amount, all councils in England must from today publish annual progress reports and prove public confidence in their work. Local authorities who fail to meet these strict conditions will see 25% of the uplift (£125m in total) withheld.
Potholes matter. Voters care about the state of the roads, they notice when they improve and so there is a reason why Starmer talking about potholes, just as Rishi Sunak did when he was PM. We may even get a picture like this soon.
But with the spring statement only two days away, and the government facing criticismg on multiple fronts, Starmer will be lucky to get 90 seconds on potholes before other questions kick in. Here are just some of the other difficult topics that could come up.
Why does the government seem minded to water down the digital services tax, saving US tech companies potentially hundreds of millions of pounds, in a move that would be seen as appeasement of the Trump administration? Rowena Mason has the latest on this story, which splashes the Guardian, here.
Will the government’s plans to cut the size of the civil service really lead to the loss of 50,000 jobs, as the Times reports? In their story Oliver Wright and Aubrey Allegretti say:
Ministers are drawing up plans to axe up to five times as many civil service jobs as previously planned, as Rachel Reeves puts herself on a collision course with public sector unions.
As she looks to balance the books in her spring statement this week, the chancellor announced on Sunday that she would cut up to £2 billion from the government’s running costs by 2030.
The cut equates to 15 per cent of the government’s £13 billion-a-year administration budget, of which more than three quarters is spent on staff.
The Times understands that the cuts are likely to reduce the size of the civil service by up to 50,000 jobs — five times more than previously mooted by the government.
Will Starmer let the Department for Education cut universal free school meals for infants as part DfE budget cuts? According to the Times, that is one option that has been floated. “The education secretary has also offered to axe funding for free period products in schools as well as dance, music and PE schemes as part of potential savings,” the Times reports. Will Hazell in the i says the education sector “is braced for the “worst financial situation for a generation”.
All these headlines relate to the spring statement on Wednesday, which is already generating grim headlines for No 10.
But Starmer is also likely to be asked about relations with President Trump, and how he felt when he heard Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, ridicule Starmer’s Ukraine policy in an interview. Asked about Starmer’s plans for a “coalition of the willing”, Witkoff said:
I think it’s a combination of a posture and a pose and a combination of also being simplistic. There is this sort of notion that we have all got to be like [British wartime prime minister] Winston Churchill. Russians are going to march across Europe. That is preposterous by the way. We have something called Nato that we did not have in World War Two.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.30am: Keir Starmer is being interviewed on Radio 5 Live.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer joins Rick Edwards live from No 10 Downing Street at 08:30 GMT
He’ll be talking about plans to fill in potholes and possible spending cuts
Listen on the free BBC Sounds app 🎧 pic.twitter.com/Lq4lVlkq2y
— BBC Radio 5 Live (@bbc5live) March 24, 2025
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
4.30pm: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the environmental audit committee.
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