The video provides a detailed analysis and discussion on the ongoing efforts and initiatives by European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, to address the conflict involving Russia and Ukraine. It scrutinizes the diplomatic actions taken by leaders such as Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer and their interactions with the United States' perspectives and criticisms, particularly involving former President Donald Trump. The conversation revolves around diplomatic, military, and economic aspects of seeking a peace resolution in the conflict, emphasizing the differences in approaches between Europe and the U.S. and the challenges of finding common ground with Russia.
The video also examines the implications of recent political actions on the economy, featuring a conversation with Mel Stride, the Shadow Chancellor. It explores the impact of budget decisions, fiscal policies, and potential future economic challenges, highlighting the complexities of managing national finances amid global uncertainties. It critiques economic policies addressing deficits and recovery, assesses the role of independent forecasting bodies like the OBR, and considers the practicability of certain welfare reforms in the UK and their potential effects on economic growth.
Main takeaways from the video:
Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.
Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:
1. ceasefire [ˈsiːsˌfaɪr] - (noun) - A temporary suspension of fighting; a truce. - Synonyms: (truce, armistice, pause)
Keir Starmer calls it the European effort to provide some kind of peacekeeping or reassurance military force. If there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, what do we know about how the coalition's getting on?
2. disparaging [dɪˈspærɪdʒɪŋ] - (adjective) - Expressing the opinion that something is of little worth; derogatory. - Synonyms: (belittling, derogatory, deprecating)
And don't forget as well, that the Americans have been absolutely disparaging about it, you know, in the sort of the torrent of anti European invective.
3. invective [ɪnˈvɛktɪv] - (noun) - Insulting, abusive, or highly critical language. - Synonyms: (abuse, denunciation, vitriol)
And don't forget as well, that the Americans have been absolutely disparaging about it, you know, in the sort of the torrent of anti European invective.
4. capitulation [kəˌpɪtʃəˈleɪʃn] - (noun) - The act of surrendering or ceasing to resist an opponent. - Synonyms: (surrender, yielding, submission)
And for Putin. And I put this to the Prime Minister as well, and again, he didn't really answer it. The his idea of peace is either military victory or Ukrainian capitulation.
5. reassurance [ˌriːəˈʃʊərəns] - (noun) - The action of removing someone's doubts or fears. - Synonyms: (encouragement, solace, comfort)
Keir Starmer calls it the European effort to provide some kind of peacekeeping or reassurance military force.
6. theoretical [ˌθiəˈrɛtɪkəl] - (adjective) - Concerned with or involving the theory of a subject or area of study rather than its practical application. - Synonyms: (conceptual, hypothetical, speculative)
And of course Trump now says, well, I was being a little bit theoretical about all of that.
7. sanctions [ˈsæŋkʃənz] - (noun) - Penalties imposed by one country on another, often in the form of restrictions on trade or economic activity. - Synonyms: (penalties, embargoes, restrictions)
No relaxation of sanctions. And of course, Zelensky cheers all this on because he very much feels the same way about it as does Macron.
8. descriptive [dɪˈskrɪptɪv] - (adjective) - Serving or seeking to describe; describing or classifying in an objective way. - Synonyms: (illustrative, detailed, graphic)
But he's got this thing about the difference between being descriptive and being perceptive.
9. perceptive [pərˈsɛptɪv] - (adjective) - Having or showing sensitive insight. - Synonyms: (observant, insightful, discerning)
But he's got this thing about the difference between being descriptive and being perceptive.
10. filibuster [ˈfɪlɪˌbʌstər] - (verb / noun) - The action of speaking at length in a legislature as a delaying tactic or obstruction. - Synonyms: (procrastination, obstruction, stalling)
That Putin is, in the words of Keir Starmer, just filibustering here and everyone is just trying to ram that message home to the Americans.
Europe's leaders unite in Paris to support Ukraine and President Zelensky - BBC Newscast
It is not a meaningful process. It's a process based on the desires of Donald Trump to try, and I mean, very laudable, to try and end this terrible war, but not actually based on reality. That's our international editor, Jeremy Bowen, who is in Paris watching a summit of European leaders and the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. Are they any closer to getting a peace deal or a peacekeeping force? We will find out on this episode of the BBC's Daily News podcast Newscast.
Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio and shortly we will be chatting to the Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, and I suspect there may be a trademark newscast quiz at some point. Listen to find out. But first of all, we're going to cross to Paris because Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, has been there meeting Emmanuel Macron, other leaders, including Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, they put a big arm around him and gave him a really quite big budget welcome. But is this just to make themselves feel better? And actually, the us, Europe, Ukraine and Russia are all still quite a long way apart. Let's find out, because Jeremy Bowen, our international editor, is there in Paris and has been speaking to lots of the people involved. Hello, Jeremy. Hey, hello. Right, lots to get. Well, good. Good to see you.
Lots to get through in terms of what's been happening in Paris. Let's start with an update on the coalition of the willing. Keir Starmer calls it the European effort to provide some kind of peacekeeping or reassurance military force. If there is a ceasefire in Ukraine, what do we know about how the coalition's getting on? Well, first of all, of course, there isn't a ceasefire, so it is something of a theoretical exercise. But of course, they'd say they are planning for the future. Well, Messrs. Zelensky, Macron, France, Starmer of the UK have all declared themselves very satisfied with everything that they discussed.
I went to the news conference that the Prime Minister did in the sumptuous surroundings of the British Embassy in Paris, a fantastic palace that they live in, and he said there that at the meeting, all the people were saying, all the leaders were saying they've never known Europe feeling so strong and full of resolve. But it has to be said that this process still has not really delivered that much that is tangible. No security guarantees. As far as we know, no country has offered to join Britain and France in potentially sending physical, real life, living, breathing troops. And so there's a long way to go. And don't forget as well, that the Americans have been absolutely disparaging about it, you know, in the sort of the torrent of anti European invective that has been coming across the Atlantic.
At the weekend, there was that interview done by the right wing American podcaster Tucker Carlson, who spoke to Steve Witkoff, his Trump's super envoy. He's also envoy to the Middle east as well as the Russia, Ukraine, war. And he absolutely dissed this coalition, the willing. I mean, he said it was a pose, it was a posture by Keir Starmer, who just wanted to sound like Winston Churchill. He was very, very slighting about it. But despite all of that, they say they're very happy with the way things are going.
And did Starmer, when he did his statement, respond to any of those criticisms by Steve Witkoff? Not in so many words, though they were put to him. I mean, the thing I said to him by the time it got to my turn was, look, listening to you and listening to the Americans and to Donald Trump and to Witkoff and the rest of them, it's almost like you're looking at two different wars in two different worlds. Starmer was saying things like, increase the military pressure on Putin, make sure there's a deadline, peace through strength, no relaxation of sanctions. And of course, Zelensky cheers all this on because he very much feels the same way about it as does Macron. Very different signals coming from Washington.
A mild remark by Starmer after the Russians imposed conditions retroactively on the agreement they were supposed to have made to have a maritime cease fire in the Black Sea, when they actually linked it to the very substantial lifting of sanctions, including rejoining one of their significant banks, rejoining the Swift network, which would give them a door into legitimate international trade and finance. And so, you know, the Americans are still going pretty much softly, softly on Russia and the Europeans are not. But when I put that to the Prime Minister, he said, oh, no, no, we're all pointing in the same direction. Mr. Trump really wants to have a peace agreement.
Well, everybody wants to have a peace agreement, but the problem is, is that they're very different versions of peace. And for Putin. And I put this to the Prime Minister as well, and again, he didn't really answer it. The his idea of peace is either military victory or Ukrainian capitulation, which neither of which of course thereafter would agree to. And just picking up on what you said there, Jeremy. So is it the case then that these, the negotiations that happened in Saudi Arabia earlier in the week, which prod two, two texts, a joint US Russian one and a joint Ukrainian one, which sketched out this idea of a ceasefire in the Black Sea to allow commercial shipping and to stop military activity in the Black Sea.
That is absolutely not happening. And the main reason it's not happening is because after those statements were put out, Russia said, we want relief on sanctions and access to the global banking system. Is that that's actually the sequence of what happened and that's where we are now? Yeah, because after they had their meeting in Saudi Arabia, the Kremlin put out this statement and the. So now after this morning, we know that Starmer, Macron, Zelenskyy had already said it, are absolutely against any relaxation of sanctions. So the big question is, where does this process go?
And actually back to that point I was trying to make about these parallel worlds, another point I made to the Prime Minister was I said, look, this is all coming from Donald Trump's actually ridiculous assertion during the campaign that he could solve it in one day. Then that went up to maybe 100 days. And of course Trump now says, well, I was being a little bit theoretical about all of that. And it's because they all are responsible. Responding to Donald Trump. It's not as if there was a view on either side that they could get something good about on Russian or Ukrainian side, get anything good out of negotiations.
Why? Because the two sides are so massively far apart. Zelensky, after the bust up in the Oval Office, is in a position where he had to agree to this 30 day unconditional cease fire, partly because Trump insisted and he had to get back into his good books. And he had, most importantly, and he said this to me when I interviewed him last night, he said, look, we had to get intelligence information back to us from the Americans because without that we are in big trouble. And that was basically the price. He says that pretty openly.
And then on the other hand, yeah, Putin's going along with what the Americans say, but bringing in, as everybody predicted, loads of conditions and when push comes to shove, putting in a massive condition, which is that the supporters of Ukraine, essentially, particularly in Europe, agree to blow a massive hole through the sanctions regime just in return for a temporary ceasefire in the Black Sea, which isn't going to happen. So my question is, where does this go from here? How do they try and get this going as a meaningful process? My assertion would be, my conclusion would be it is not a meaningful process. It's a process based on the desires of Donald Trump to try, and I mean, very laudable, to try and end this terrible war, but not actually based on reality.
And Jeremy, you mentioned your chat with Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday evening in very grand surroundings. It was like a big production number that seemed to involve lots of other European broadcast broadcasters as well. What was your read of Zelensky at the moment? Well, just before we get into that, I need to tell you a bit about the background of that, because the European Broadcasting Union, which we all in Europe are members of, and we exchange material, they arranged it. And I mean, it sounds a bit like a joke. There was a French woman, a German woman, an Estonian man and a Welshman, and we met a Ukrainian. And it was in a very grand surroundings of this extraordinary museum looking down on the Eiffel Tower, which had been in honor of Zelensky.
They made the lights yellow and blue and it was glittery and very, very striking. And of course, when we got there, the French immediately took us all out to lunch while this enormous elaborate set was being built. What I said to them, look, if this was the BBC organizing this, you'd probably get a limps of sandwich if you were lucky. But I have very nice Tornado Rossini. But anyway, I mean, as for Zelensky, he arrived, he was actually very upbeat, considering he's been under an awful lot of pressure.
Now, why is that? I think it's because Macron and Starmer are showing him a lot of love. He came from the Elyse palace, where he'd been talking to President Macroy. After he finished with us, he went back to the the palace for what he called a tete a tete dinner. So they're clearly getting on well and agreeing with each other about the way this should go ahead. But there is something really fundamentally difficult at the heart of it, which is actually, in a way, Trump was correct to say that this is going nowhere because under Biden, the Americans gave them more or less enough to keep going, the Ukrainians, but not enough to win, because Biden was very worried.
But Russia under pressure, losing, maybe using nuclear weapons and risks of World War Three, all of that. And so maybe, you know, the argument is that Trump is being realistic. Come on, guys, you have to make a deal. And if necessary, Ukraine, you have to give up some land to the Russians, which is something that the Ukrainians absolutely do not want to do. But so, I mean, I think the challenge diplomatically is to try to plot a course or a decision has to be taken about where this is going.
It is all very well for the Europeans to say, we're going to be with you all the way, but if they can't Back it up with something very tangible that either forces Russia to make concessions or builds up the muscles of the Ukrainians considerably, then frankly, it's all a bit of an empty, performative exercise.
Well, my, my sense as an outside observer is the diplomatic effort is maybe shifting a little bit away from building up the coalition of the willing militarily and shifting into sending the message to Donald Trump that Putin is, in the words of Keir Starmer, just filibustering here and everyone is just trying to ram that message home to the Americans that they are, in their eyes, in danger of being played here. That seems like the, it seems like the pendulum has shifted away from, from a military build up to try and force some negotiations to basically just pressurizing the Americans.
Just one last question, and it's a bit unrelated to this, but our colleague Mark Loewen, who's been in Turkey for the last couple of days covering the protests against President Erdogan's government there, he was basically detained and has been deported from the country as a threat to public order. Is that the sort of thing you've ever experienced somewhere in the world? Have you been kicked out of a country before? Yeah, I have. And it's not the kind of country necessarily that President Erdogan of Turkey would like to be associated with. I was booted out of Saddam Hussein's Iraq for similar, for actually saying something in the news report that they didn't like. I spoke about Saddam's network of coercion and repression, which was, you know, extremely well developed.
But you weren't meant to mention it. Well, I mentioned it and I got, they gave us, they said, you've got to get to the border in four hours. And it was a eight hour drive to get there. The poor old sound recorders had never been there before. Thought we were for the chop. I said, don't worry, it's going to be fine. And yeah, I've been booted from. I was kicked out of Afghanistan once. One thing about being a foreign correspondent is arrest and expulsion is definitely a, an occupational hazard. But, you know, joking apart, what happened to Mark and has happened before to many hundreds, actually, of Turkish journalists, in terms of being locked up, they're not clearly being expelled says all you need to know about the authoritarian regime in Turkey and its attitude to freedom of the press, freedom of speech, freedom of reporting, because, you know, Mark Lohan is a very good, fair journalist. I mean, listen to his reporting.
He's been doing some brilliant stuff out of Turkey and the fact that they're Worried about it means, frankly, it means they're scared of the truth. Jeremy, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you. It's been great to be on the program again.
No, I'm a great believer in the day after the spring statement is just as interesting as the day the Chancellor delivers the Spring statement. And today is now. I'm a great believer in the day after the Spring statement is just as interesting as the day when the Chancellor delivers the Spring statement. And that's just as true today as it is every year. But we're going to chat over now with somebody who was there eyeball to eyeball with Rachel Reeves as she updated the nation's finances. It is the Shadow Chancellor, Mel Stride, who is returning to newscast. Shadow Chancellor, hello.
Hello, Adam. And Chris is down the line at Westminster, although we're looking at him in a big screen. Hello, both. Hi. It's like watching you on tv, Chris. Oh, no. Anyway, for people who are listening, Chris is in a big screen in the corner. First question. I think last time you were on newscast, Mel, you were actually in the Cabinet, so you're on the other side of the House of Commons. Yeah. What's it like being in kind of the, I wouldn't call it, well, the loser side, but it's going from being in a huge department. So I was at DWP that I was running with 90,000 people and loads of civil servants sorting all sorts of things out for you to kind of guerrilla warfare, you know, where you're kind of in a much smaller team. But, you know, we're there to hold the government to account and that's what we're doing. And I think we're doing it very effectively. And I think you saw that yesterday actually around the so called spring statement or emergency budget, as we.
What is this whole emergency budget thing you're going with kind of revenge for the list? No, not at all. No. Look, if you stand up in front of the House of Commons and you just update the House of Commons on the latest OBR forecast, which she did, then that is a spring statement, which indeed she did, and it made pretty, pretty sobering reading. That's one thing, and I would call that a statement. But if you're going to have to intervene to regenerate all the lost headroom that you've lost since the last fiscal event, then to me that becomes an emergency. Do you know what does it mean? Well, to me this sounds like that's the difference. This now sounds like you've just coined the Stride rule, which is if you Are Chancellor, because you win the next election, if you want to make any changes to public spending outside a budget, you will call that a budget.
So no, I think it's different. If it's a little bit of tinkering around the edges, that fine. But look, if you start off with 9.9 billion in headroom, which is what the Chancellor had back in the autumn, and you lose all of that, right. And another 4.1 billion on top, and you therefore have to, as she did in her case, scrabble around to find savings and welfare and squeezing spending and all of those kind of things, then that is more than just simply standing up and, you know, cantering through the, the latest forecast from the ab I think that's the difference
I wonder about because I'm conscious for some newscasters some of the terms that we're throwing around might seem a little sort of alien about headroom and fiscal rules and the Office for Budget Responsibility and all the rest of it. But here is the Chancellor sort of setting out, you know, her own self imposed rules around trying to project a sense of economic credibility and then working out what measures that she's proposing, what reaction they provoke from the forecast of the OBR in terms of how they're scored, to use the sort of Westminster vernacular, how much money they think things can save or how much economic growth it might generate. I'm wondering on your critique and your labeling of the statement as an emergency budget core of it, then should she, you know, if you were in, if you'd been in her seat in October or indeed yesterday, and I know you'd have had a very different approach to tax and many other things, is the bottom line of what you're saying is that this should have been, she, a Chancellor should be leaving a lot more headroom. Oh, undoubtedly.
Okay. By what sort of magnitude do you think? Well, I, I'm not going to put a number on it and I'm, you know, haven't been sitting in the Treasury. Look, you, you know, but you asked the question. I have, I haven't given you an answer, Chris, which is absolutely, I mean, look what happened to the headroom last time. As they say, she lost the whole lot and more. She's now put together the same headroom, the same number and taken a lot of difficult choices in order to do that. At the same time as saying that we live in an uncertain world and there are all sorts of things out there that may be very serious headwinds to the economy and this is why the ifs, for example, is saying they would be surprised if she can get through to the autumn without having to come back and maybe raise taxes, for example. So, yeah, there's not enough headroom.
I wonder if there's almost just to sort of reverse the psychology a bit that perhaps the world is so wildly unpredictable at the moment that even if you had, I don't know, double treble the amount of headroom, it could still be blown out the water by, you know, I don't know, whatever Donald Trump says a week on Wednesday. Well, there are some scenarios that you could conjure and it's not even go there, but sort of world events that could kick off and happen that of course mean that all bets are off, but in a sort of realistic kind of assumptions about the kind of buffeting that the economy might get going forward. I don't think what she has is enough. My proof point on that to some degree would be what has happened to her previous headroom, which was clearly not enough. And I not sure that people, well, certainly people like the ifs and others are going to have, you know, cast iron confidence that she's going to be able to get through on the headroom that she's put together.
I'm trying to get a rough ballpark of where you think her headroom should be. Should it be 15 billion, 20 billion? 25? So, as I say, I don't think I'm gonna get drawn into giving a precise number other than to observe that, you know, history is a guide to the future. We've seen what this Chancellor has done. She gambled on a thin sliver of headroom last time round, then went out, talked down on the economy, loaded up businesses with tax, got into big spending territory that we're used to, the Labour Party of old, if you like, which was an inflationary pressure, kept interest rates higher for longer, had a knock on consequence for the national debt and the servicing of that. And those things all combined basically killed growth stone dead and destroyed our headroom.
And I'm not full of confidence that this Chancellor is going to get us through to the autumn, given the same amount of headroom as she had before and that headroom surviving. We'll see. We'll see a question that. We'll see the answer. Yeah, let's put this in a little time capsule. So in a couple of years time, we're going to be spending something as a country like 110 billion pounds a year just servicing government debt because of the pile of debt that's been built up over the last few decades. Do you take some responsibility for that? Because a huge chunk of it was built up during the pandemic. Yeah. Okay, well, let's look at that because it's a really fair question. Go back to 2010, when we first appeared on the scene in the coalition government. We inherited, if you remember, a huge deficit. It was about 160 billion.
Right. And that's the excess of spending over tax receipts, effectively from the then last Labour government. It took time to get that deficit down. And so by definition, given that the definite deficit adds to the debt, the debt was increasing as a the proportion of GDP. But when we got to about 2015, actually we started to bring that debt as a proportion of GDP down. It was on a downward trajectory until we hit Covid. And then of course, it spiked up as it did in many other countries now making competitive countries. We spent about £400 billion supporting the economy through Covid, mainly supporting jobs.
People said we would be going into a world where we'd see mass unemployment. Like in retrospect, was that too much? Well, I think there'll be endless debate. I think the most important overriding thing is that, you know, whether it was a bit too much or a bit too little or whatever it was, the reality is that that intervention spared us from mass unemployment. Now you've got to remember that what Covid did was shrank the UK economy by 10% overnight. It hadn't had that kind of treatment since the great frost of 1709. So that was a cataclysmic event and a conservative government stepped up to the plate. But we did spend a lot of money doing it, and that's why debt as a proportion of GDP shot up at that point. Okay, so you say.
And also cost of living support through the Ukraine, the inflation caused by Ukraine. Well, okay, so there's a debate about whether that was the right level. Was that the right level? Where would you be? Look, put it this way. If the question became if you inherited in 2010 a colossal deficit up at around 10% of GDP, about 160 billion or thereabouts, would you have been able to have done much other than see debt increasing? I doubt it. If you had been struck by an externality like Covid that shrank the economy by that much in the terms that we've discussed, would you have been able to avoided protecting the economy without spending any money? I doubt it.
So I think you can talk about a bit around the scale here and the scale there, but the reality is there are strong reasons. Well, so you must have A bit of sympathy there with Rachel Reeves having to manage the situation. Because you ran up lots of the debt. No, but what was she meant to do? Get rid of it overnight? No, because the problems that we have had were around Covid and then the inflationary pressures with Ukraine and Russia and all. Yeah. Which built up a stock of debt she's having to deal with.
Yes, indeed. But the problem that she. Yes, but if you look at the problem she got in losing the headroom, a large part of that, in fact most of it is to do with that servicing cost on the debt. Yeah. Debt which you rattled. Correct. But she has a added to it by this great spending splurge. 70 billion of spending a across the forecast and secondly by doing that and also raising national insurance which has a knock on a consequence for prices because businesses push them into higher prices. Inflation was higher and therefore interest rates are higher. And her mismanagement of the economy and the loss of confidence in that by the markets, meaning the government borrowing was going up at the same time.
I mean, interest rates have come down three times since she's been Chancellor. Yeah, but it should have been faster than that. If you hadn't been stoking up inflationary pressures in the economy, interest rates would have come down quicker. So it's no good just trumpeting three cuts. It should have been more and faster. That was on her watch. Understood. I wonder, Mel, what would be a, in your view, a sustainable or justifiable amount of cost as far as debt servicing is concerned? Well, you want to get it down clearly as much as you can. I mean one of what sort of. I want to get some sort of sense of scale. If you look across the international. You've seen or history. There have been times in our history where debt has been up at 250. That was in the Second World War. You look at Germany, it's about 60% of GDP and that's why they're in a much stronger position when it comes to borrowing on at least that.
Is that the kind of number we need to be getting? We do need to be getting it down. But look, you're now asking me questions about the future, which I think do we play into that space of we've got to as a party look at the whole totality of the macro economy and we've got to answer actually a fundamental question which is how do you get growth and productivity right up? You know, if you looked at trend growth up to the great financial crisis and we just continue that as it was, we'd be 25% bigger as an economy. So how do you do that? And things like debt and the size of debt and getting onto are all part of going through that kind of analysis.
So I don't want to pluck figures out of the air other than to say we have got to get debt down. The changes to the disability benefits that everyone's been talking about for the last week or so, and we got another update on them yesterday and we also got the impact assessment about how much they will actually affect people who receive these benefits. Are you signed up to this plan of tweaking the personal independence, personal independence payments in this way and the disability bit of universal credit? What I am signed up to, and I believe I delivered when I was Secretary of State at Work and Pensions, is what I would call Prince principled welfare reform. And what I mean by that is something that. Where some deep thinking has been carried out and there is a very clear, logical plan as to what you're trying to do and how you're going to do it in a way that is both fair to the taxpayer and getting the welfare bill down because it is spiraling ever skyward and that needs to be gripped. Absolutely.
And secondly is fair to those people who depend upon welfare so that you protect the most vulnerable. I am not happy with what the government has done because if you are to have a principal welfare approach, you cannot rush that. You cannot have a situation where the Labour Party has nothing about personal independence payments in their manifesto. It's not mentioned. Once they come into office, they pussyfoot around the whole issue. Why? Because it's deeply divisive amongst their ranks. And then the Chancellor, from the top of the sinking ship suddenly shouts out, hey, I need some money to, you know, shore things up. And then they all run around and suddenly cobble something together. That is not the best way to approach welfare.
You end up with the worst of both worlds. Firstly, you don't actually make the level of savings that you would get from a more thought through fundamental reform. And secondly, you end up with far more hard edges, which is just frankly unfair. So what should they have done instead in terms of. So we were. We had already to take pip. We had already consulted on PIP when I was Secretary of State. It was one of those areas that we were moving into in terms of further reforms. Within that consultation was more fundamental reform of pep. I don't know how much detail we want to go into now, but you want a benefit that is highly targeted in a cost efficient way on the people that really need the help rather than a blunt benefit that tends to give people support where maybe financially they don't need it.
So they might just need an aid and appliance they might even be getting from the NHS or the mobile association. You means test it, would you? No, I'm not talking about means testing there at all. I'm just talking about, well, what PIP is. PIP is a payment that is at least a part compensation for the additional costs of disability. And if the additional cost, the point that I'm making were for example some aid or appliance, maybe a walking stick or something that helps you, you know, handle your kettle in a particular way or whatever, then that may be a one off need that's not too expensive, rather different from a rather more complicated need.
For example, somebody may have a mental health condition, much more complex in terms of the problem. So what I wanted to move to was a system that was much more targeted on getting the right resources, given the nature. Oh, so somebody might get a one off PIP style payment for a thing that helps them and somebody else might get continuing PIP style payments. Yeah, or support. So the mental health example may be far more helpful to somebody to get decent support and help for their condition rather than transfer payments every year for many years.
How did you got to the stage of working out how much that would save from the budget? So bear in mind the savings we talk about here are quite weird because the number of people getting it is going to go up well across the piece. And if you look at health related and disability related benefits, if you were to not see any increase in the number of people that are receiving health related benefits between now and the end of the forecast period, if it was just that cohort number was kept static, you would save. I think it's around probably now, the numbers move as time goes on, but about £15 billion.
If you were to get that number back to its pre Covid level, which perhaps we should think we should be able to do that you'd be looking at a saving every year. This is of well in excess of 30 billion pounds. So there are very large amounts of money, much of it driven by actually not so much going back from where we are today, but just making sure that the ever spiraling profile, the numbers of people on these benefits doesn't keep going up and up and up. And how do you do that? Well, pip, I've explained that you look at fundamental reform with the work capability assessments, reforms that I brought in, which saved 5 billion pounds across the forecast and that was scored by The OBR would have led to. The OBR said 450,000 fewer people going on to long term disability and sickness benefits.
That was to do with the way in which the gateway into that benefit actually operated and to make sure that it was more fit for purpose. Not least because a lot of people with mobility issues are able to work from home, which is a much more prevalent option than it would have been over a decade ago when the way that. But this government doing a lot of that properly. Isn't this government doing a lot of that, the stuff that you just sketched out there? No. What? No what?
No, what the government has done with the health element to UC is to freeze the. The actual rate of the benefit and indeed to halve it for those newly going on to that benefit and then to freeze it thereafter. And this is increasing the basic level of universal credit. Yes, the standard allowance. But let me just make the point that. What I think that demonstrates is my point about rushing it. Because if you rush it, you don't fundamentally reform. What you simply do is you say, well, freeze that benefit or cut it, which is incredibly blunt way to go about trying to square what I call that principled reform, which is to be fair to the taxpayer, but equally to be fair to people who are often quite vulnerable.
Vulnerable. I suppose in that scenario, Mel, how you wrestle with the. Again, that sort of point of principle, and I know the principles can be intention with this kind of thing between those who are existing recipients of something who by, from what you're saying, broadly speaking, might continue to be recipients in broadly the same way, versus somebody who could be of very similar circumstance, but only required or sought the help of the state at a later moment? He was getting significantly less. Are you referring there, Chris, to the new world that the government has taken us into, that there are two different rates, depending on whether you are.
Partly that because the same critique. Yeah, I mean, partly that because the same critique would apply to that scenario. But I was just thinking about your scenario where you were talking about the existing collection of people, the cohort of people who are current recipients versus what you might be able to do and how much money you could save if you squeeze the. The flow of people into that cohort. Yeah. So I think the reason, if I can try and interpret your question, I think the reason why the government has done something different for those who already get the benefit, as opposed to those that may in the future get the benefit, is that it is clearly more difficult to change arrangements for somebody who's already getting something than it is to change what somebody gets. And they didn't understand what they would have gotten those two people. That two people are very similar circumstances. I think not.
And this is my exact point. The reason why they've ended up doing that, for example, is it has been rushed. So you have to crack the problem of how you treat everybody equally with equal circumstance. But we're actually moving into a world where those that are on the benefit are going to be treated differently from those that are about to go on the benefit by squeezing the number of people who are going on to the benefits as opposed to. But I wasn't changing the actual level of the benefit was. I wasn't changing what people would receive when they're on there.
I was looking at making changes to the gateway into that benefit to recognize the fact that with support, a lot of people can actually, for example, work from home. So that that's the distinction. And of course, those that have the benefit would then be reassessed in time and they would then go through a different process to assess whether they would still get the benefit, but everybody would be treated equally in that way. And I hate to be one of those people that says, oh, it's very complicated, but I mean, the benefit system is just complicated.
It is a fact. How long did it take you to get your head around the benefit system when you became the working partner? That is a brilliant, brilliant question. And also, did you ever fully get your head around it? Well, do you ever fully understand everything? Totally. No. I think to answer your question, undoubtedly it did take me a number of months before I totally felt that I kind of understood the terrain. I knew exactly. I knew early on, broadly, you didn't have to be a rocket scientist to work out the broad things that I had to do in that department.
And the one thing I would add, I think, is that if you're to deal with complexity and to deal with a vast system that is difficult to rearrange and change, and reform is pick your targets. So don't try and change the whole world. Try and hone in on the big things that really matter and really go for those and try and move the dial. So my reforms work. Capability assessment was a big process. It took quite a long time to do and I think it delivered well. As the OBR said, almost half a million people not going onto these benefits and having the opportunity to go into work, I think was a major achievement. But that was the approach that I took. So. Interesting.
Right, let's wrap up quickly with a quick little quiz for you. We haven't done a quiz for a while, so. Yeah, but last time you were on, we had quite a long chat about all your cricketing metaphors that you like. Oh, we did, didn't we? And you schooled me in, like, cricket. Dead batting. Exactly. And I've been dining out on the cricket. I can't remember.
But what I've noticed lately is I think maybe your crown as the world's biggest user of sporting metaphors in politics has been usurped by Mark Carney in Canada. Because I've noticed every time he appears. Fiscal term. No. Every time he appears, he does a little ice hockey metaphor. He does. So we thought we'd see how good your knowledge of ice hockey metaphors is. Puck. Okay, well, this is gonna answer the first one. The answer to the second question. Hang on. You don't make us mark your own. The third one is. Yeah, right. So we've got a couple of clips of Mark Carney's recent appearances. And I'm gonna see if you can interpret these. What am I looking at? Which screen? We're just gonna play it. It's audio. Video. Okay. Right. So this is a video he did at the Weekend with Mike Myers, the Canadian comedian, and. Yeah. Austin Powers. Austin Powers and Shrek.
And this is what. This is what the two of them said. And we'll see if you can interpret this. Ice hockey. Okay. Right. Wow. Really are Canadian. Yeah. But let me ask you, Mr. Prime Minister, will there always be a Canada? There will always be a Canada. All right, elbows out. Elbows up. What do you reckon elbows up means? I. I think that means kind of good news. That's great. That's positive. We're going for it. We're not. We're not messing around. We're up to the fight.
It's actually a reference to the. The style of. Of play by a player called Gordie Howe, which is tough and defensive. I think that's what I was saying. I've had the OBR onto this. Okay. I didn't name check him, and I'll do that next time, but, yeah, no, right. Okay. Here's the second one. And this is from his acceptance speech when he actually got the leadership of his party. Okay. And he's gonna talk about the U.S. tariffs. We didn't ask for this fight. We didn't ask for this fight.
But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves. So the Americans dropping the gloves. What do we think that means? Ready when somebody else drops the gloves. So it sounds like when somebody drops the gloves. They're inviting you to. Into a contest of some sort, Correct? Yeah, I just defined that from. Yeah, okay, that's definitely. That's two out of two, right? No, that's one out of two, Right. You're being ungenerous. I'm not coming on again. If you're going to cheat on the quiz. I'm not coming on again. The listeners can decide if this has been a fair match.
Right, here's the third and final one. So this is him during the campaign for the leadership. And this is Mark Carney comparing himself to the then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. I'm a very different person than the current prime minister. I was born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories. My parents were teachers. I grew up in Edmonton. And I'm a goalie. He's a snowboarder. You know, there's lots and lots of differences. What's the implication of the different sports there? A goalie and a goalie and a. Wow.
And he's a snowboarder. Yeah, he's not. Trudeau is a snowboarder. He's not referring to positions played within ice hockey. So actually, this is not really ice hockey. It's not ice hockey. Well, it is ice because he's saying he's a goalie. So Carney's a goalie. Yeah. Okay. Trudeau is a snowboarder. It's a snowboarder. Okay. I say, is it about being a team player as opposed to a loner on your. On your. On your snowboard? That is an interesting interpretation, but actually doing the bit for the team, what he really meant was that people who snowboard are posh and people who play ice hockey are normal, which some people might think is a quite strange thing for Mark Carney to suggest as a member of the global elite.
Well, indeed. Well, I'm gonna give you one. One and a half out of three. Right. Well, I might come back on. And we need to find a world leader who's got a love of sporting metaph that we can. That we can test you on. Last, last question, and this is a mad question to end on. Do you think the OBR has got too much power? I think that we need to have an independent forecaster. I don't think the chancellor should be marking her own homework. Like, if you think about what's going on. Yeah, maybe. I think when it comes. No OBRs, keep them out of the quiz. Right. I feel very strongly about that. No, but I think when it comes to, you know, what's happening, happened over the last few Days. Would we really want the treasury to be in charge of marking its own homework? I don't think we would, but I do think we need to look at the OBR in terms of how it scores things, how it operates.
You know, I think there needs to be some thinking around that and a number of the other arms, lens, bodies and institutions. What's so thinking around the pra, the fca, all these things we need to think about and have a look at. Yeah. On the specifics of the. The OBR and the scoring, this is a very sort of nerdy Westminster type thought, but I mean, should they be doing more to. I don't know their workings about how they've concluded that, oh, actually, perhaps the Government can deliver its house building plans or actually it doesn't think that they can save as much money on welfare as they thought the Government thought they could.
Yeah, I think potentially, I mean, as you know, the scorecard is developed through an iterative process with the treasury, so they will be pouring over the details between them. Now, whether more of that should be made public, I think is an interesting, an interesting idea I'm trying to work out. If you want his wings clipped a bit. Is that the thrust of what you're saying? I don't think wings clipped in terms of making sure there is an independent body that is trusted to mark the Chancellor's homework and come up with those forecasts. Shriveled a bit.
Well, I wouldn't say shriveled a bit. I. Look, I, I think one. Okay, let me. To get a bit nerdy. So they have, in this round of forecasts, decided to give. Give some impact on economic growth due to planning reforms. Yeah. Now that actually is a bit of a shift in the obr, and one of the frustrations I had with the OBR around the labor market was if you went to them with an intervention and said, look, we're going to do this really innovative new thing that hasn't been done before. They said, well, we're not going to score it. Well, why not? Because there's no evidence that it works. Well, yeah, of course there isn't, because we're doing things differently. You know, the old things don't work and that's why we don't differently.
So unless you could find. So unless you were doing basically incrementally the same thing that you did before, or you could find some other country that was doing exactly what you're suggesting, it was difficult to get things scored. So I think this idea of scoring and in that area of the OBR's activity is definitely an area where probably some thinking might be required. But I think the principle of the OBR is an important one. And I have to confess, I loved our chat about the OBR as much as I love the quiz. But that's how we roll our newscast. Mel, thank you very much. Great pleasure. Lovely to see you. You.
And that's all for this episode of Newscast. Thank you very much for listening. And to everyone who's been on it, we'll be back with another one very soon. Bye. Bye.
POLITICS, ECONOMICS, GLOBAL, VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, MEL STRIDE, PEACE NEGOTIATIONS, BBC NEWS