Working to make government more effective

Working to make government more effective

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves speaks during a press conference in the Downing Street Briefing Room in Downing Street
Podcast

Will Trump rip up Reeves’s rebalanced books?

Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and former adviser to Gordon Brown, joins the podcast team to assess Rachel Reeves’s attempts to turn around the economy.

Spring has nearly sprung, but the fiscal forecasts made for a rather gloomy spring statement for Rachel Reeves. Stewart Wood, a Labour peer and former adviser to Gordon Brown, joins the podcast team to assess the state of the economy – and Reeves’s attempts to turn it around.

How much will welfare cuts upset Labour backbenchers? What could Donald Trump's tariffs mean for Reeves's plans? And just how difficult are the choices awaiting the chancellor as the spending review approaches?

Plus: New IfG research focuses on left-behind groups – and sets out some of the tensions in how the government is approaching one of its missions and milestones.

What we talked about in this episode

People featured in this episode

Topic
Public finances Policy making
Keywords
Spring statement Spending review Public spending Economy Growth Welfare Schools Complex policy problems
Political party
Labour
Position
Chancellor of the exchequer
Administration
Starmer government
Department
HM Treasury
Public figures
Rachel Reeves
Publisher
Institute for Government

Related content

28 APR 2025 Project

Spending review 2025

Key things to look out for in Rachel Reeves' first spending review and the trade-offs she faces in advance.

16 MAY 2025 Podcast

Starmer and the strangers

British Future’s Sunder Katwala joins the podcast team to dig into the detail of the government’s new immigration policy.