The Scotsman Bulletin for Monday March 24 2025 #SpringStatement

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Monday.

00:04My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor at the Scotsman.

00:07Now I'm joined by our Westminster correspondent, Alexander Brown.

00:11Alex, we're going to get into what is a big week for

00:14the Chancellor and the UK government ahead, as it often is.

00:19But firstly, front page of today's Scotsman.

00:23We're led on universities and some polling that showed almost half of

00:27Scots back in the end to free university tuition.

00:31We know it's been a pillar, effectively, that's remained under the SNP government

00:37that they have argued that they will continue to keep regardless,

00:42leading through and past next year's Scottish Parliament elections.

00:47But there is unprecedented pressures at the moment on universities across

00:50the country.

00:51We know Dundee University admitted last week, as Senior Chief,

00:56that they're weeks from running out of cash altogether and that they needed

01:01intervention to the tune of some 20, 22 million pounds last week from

01:05the Scottish Funding Council to help prop the university up and

01:09assist with its recovery plan.

01:11Others like Edinburgh University have also acknowledged significant pressures

01:16and the potential for looming staff cuts and voluntary redundancy.

01:22This is going to continue to be a theme over coming months.

01:25And talking of themes, Alex, well, we won't talk about the Scotland football

01:31because that did not end well yesterday, but something else that hasn't gone

01:35particularly well, you would argue, over the past five months is things

01:40for the Chancellor on the economic front.

01:42Now, we sat here for the October budget.

01:44It was the first budget for a new government.

01:46Rachel Reeves stood up.

01:48She was quite commanding, spoke well, I think, of the statement.

01:52Since then, both her record and capability in the role, as well as the UK

01:57government, has come under attack.

01:58Some of the economic figures in the meantime haven't always been great.

02:04We know inflation did up again recently, and we come into this spring statement

02:09with the government knowing that it's trying to bat off the threat of tariffs

02:13coming out of the US, et cetera.

02:16It feels like there's a lot happening.

02:18How important is this statement for Rachel Reeves and her government?

02:23It's a really big week and a really big statement for Rachel Reeves, who will hope

02:27to avoid her own relegation, whereas the vultures circle.

02:31She has had a really difficult time since coming into the job, and you could point

02:35to the 22.5 billion pound black hole, which is what Labour ministers have done

02:40repeatedly, and I actually think that was fine in her first statement when she was

02:43explaining the state of the finances.

02:45There was this real belief and support for, oh, actually, the Tories have left this

02:49terrible financial legacy, and we have to put it together.

02:52But that, combined with the optics of making cuts, has people maybe expected their

02:58lives to be a little bit better by now, because they voted for change, not more

03:02austerity, and that's maybe what we're looking at.

03:04So it's really significant, because then she brought people along.

03:08And if we are expecting big cuts, which we'll get into later, if we are expecting

03:13those, bringing MPs along with her, bringing MPs along with the government to stop them

03:17being vocal critics is going to be a big ask.

03:20And we know the government has had its first battles in bringing people along.

03:24It had that over Pip, which was originally going to get frozen in the reforms to

03:30welfare. And that didn't happen because Labour MPs were incandescent and going in

03:34and out of Downing Street constantly as Starmer and colleagues tried to convince

03:38them. So for the Chancellor, who is no longer the most popular person in that

03:43Cabinet room, this is really big.

03:46I'm not saying that she's a risk.

03:47I don't think there's any expectation that she'll be going anytime soon.

03:50But MPs privately are beginning to have doubts about the whole concept of a growth

03:55agenda. Alex, is it fair to say the messaging definitely seems to have changed from the

04:01election? We had time for change slogan that has been watered down.

04:05There's also a lot of talk at the October budget about the 22 billion black hole left by

04:10the Tories. But I feel that the government have stopped talking about that more.

04:15And to me, it doesn't feel if Rachel Reeves falls back on that again at this statement,

04:21I get the sense it's not going to be received well.

04:24I thought they had stopped talking about it.

04:26They say all the time, I think we've just become accustomed to it and it maybe doesn't

04:29cut it anymore. It's OK to know there's a financial disaster and things aren't that

04:33great. But the public need to hear a little bit positivity.

04:36They need to know that the government is acting in their interests.

04:38And if they hear about cuts to public services, they hear about NHS England being

04:43abolished, which in many ways is to refine the process and get more funding to the

04:50actual services that are required.

04:51But it's not being framed as that.

04:53So the optics have consistently been a problem for this Labour government.

04:57They have not made their messaging clear.

04:58So at a time when they are trying to put the pieces back together, make an argument

05:03that in a financial crisis, it takes a long term plan to put things together.

05:07Right. We have a few difficult decisions, but long term, we'll reap the benefits.

05:12There needs to be more of that from this government.

05:14And actually, I think we saw the first example of that last week in the first

05:18investments from GB Energy, which are expected to save at least for NHS England and

05:23for schools, tens to hundreds of thousands of pounds in energy by directly investing in

05:29solar panels, etc. for them.

05:31Obviously, the Scottish government has its own say.

05:32But those sorts of measures, we need a lot more of those, a lot more of those.

05:36This is what we're doing. This is how it's going to save money for you and your family,

05:40because without that, it's just cuts and no one is going to stand up and vote for that

05:44again. Alex, so welfare cuts or welfare reform for the term that the government's

05:51using, that has been trailed in the build up.

05:55And we know that that will therefore have a knock on impact for the Scottish budget

06:00because it may result in less money feeding through for consequentials.

06:04But are we expecting more cuts than just that on Wednesday?

06:08Yeah, I think we are expecting the biggest cuts to government departments since the

06:14austerity era of George Osborne and David Cameron.

06:18Departments have been told anything between 12 to 20 percent of cuts are required or

06:24they want those presented to them.

06:26There is one theory being posited by some in government, some MPs, that actually this

06:32is just trying to make it seem like it's much worse than it will be.

06:35So when the cuts aren't quite that severe, it seems like the government has been

06:38restrained. But yeah, departments everywhere are expecting big cuts.

06:42Defence will be fine. Health, we already know that they're abolishing loads of jobs.

06:46I don't think a Labour government can cut NHS spending.

06:49NHS spending is always going to increase, but they can say they're refining it to delay

06:54how much more they need to spend.

06:55And I think that's going to be the same for a lot of departments.

06:58I think we probably won't hear it in the statement, but I imagine once we get the

07:02documents, myself and many other journalists will get these huge, huge briefing notes of

07:07details from the Treasury.

07:08I imagine when we get into that, we'll be seeing a few measures that have been promised

07:11before are maybe being delayed, are maybe being refined or simply cut completely.

07:17There will be big cuts to many, many departments.

07:20And Alex, just lastly, it's talked about that actually some members of the voting

07:26public, when it comes to things like welfare cuts or reforms, actually welcome that, that

07:31there is actually support for that.

07:33Do you think the supports for cuts to the civil service as well, because it does mean

07:37jobs going, but the argument about whether the civil service is too bloated and it needs

07:43to be cut in the first place to save money, if the cuts are coming, does that appeal to

07:48voters far more than hearing your taxes going up?

07:52Yeah, it does. I mean, voters don't necessarily have a warm view of civil servants.

07:56They think of them as these faceless, nameless government staffers who, especially during

08:03parties such as Brexit, they were repeatedly briefed against and criticised because they

08:08relied on facts rather than politics.

08:11Yeah, it's really easy to go after civil servants.

08:13And I think it's remarkable that Labour government is doing so.

08:16I mean, we had the language from the prime minister last year where he talked about, I

08:19think he might have even said swamp and talked about the bloat in the civil service, which

08:23is language not so much from the Tory book, but straight from the Donald Trump playbook.

08:28So it's really easy to go after them because they're not going after anyone specific.

08:32They're not going after someone who the public have good connotations with.

08:35You're just saying there's too many people hired in this role and we need to get rid of

08:40some of them so that we can help improve your life rather than having too many hires.

08:44We're going to see a lot of job losses.

08:45So NHS England is going to make tens of thousands of cuts.

08:49And obviously that then could extend to Scotland if Labour get into Holyrood, if they

08:52reform the service there.

08:54It's going to be the same in the civil service.

08:55So it's all about saving money.

08:57But I think we should remember that a lot of people are going to lose their jobs now.

09:01A lot of people are going to lose their jobs and Labour thinks that's a price worth

09:06paying. So, yeah, obviously they'll have the numbers.

09:08It's politically expedient for them to do so.

09:10And then in the weeks ahead, we'll have to learn how the Scottish government react to

09:14this as well in terms of the pot of money that they're going to have to work with for

09:19the next 12 months or so moving forward.

09:20Alex, thank you very much for joining us.

09:22I know you'll be covering every inch of the Spring Statement throughout this week.

09:26It's on Wednesday for those tuning in who haven't checked the diary yet.

09:31You can follow all our latest politics coverage at Scotsman.com.

09:35Just look for the politics tab in the navigation bar and a full wrap of all your

09:40Scottish news here and also news abroad in tomorrow's Scotsman.

09:44Thanks, everyone, for joining us.

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