Starmer faces radio grilling as criticism of spring statement plans escalates – UK politics live | Politics

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.

Q: Who are the male role models?

Starmer says he looks to sport. But he says for pupils it is often people at school.

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.

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.)

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.

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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