Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips is live on Sky News, talking to Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch.
Sunday 26 January 2025 09:45, UK
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The studio panel alongside Trevor Phillips are discussing the interviews we’ve just seen with Rachel Reeves and Kemi Badenoch.
Former Labour adviser Baroness Ayesha Hazarika says she was surprised with the consensus held between the chancellor and Tory leader over building and planning reform.
“What was interesting about that is she was kind of endorsing Rachel Reeves’s long term infrastructure plan,” she says.
“I thought that was fascinating.”
Journalist Jon Sopel agreed.
“She started off by saying Labour doesn’t understand how business works… and then proceeded to talk about how Labour is getting it right in the sort of policies that it is introducing,” he says.
“She’s the leader of the opposition. So she has to oppose what the government is doing. But there was a broad degree of consensus.”
We’re now moving on to the topic of immigration and a discussion over integration and culture.
Trevor Phillips asks Kemi Badenoch if she feels this matters more in the UK than the numbers of people illegally entering the country.
“The numbers we have seen over the last few decades mean we are getting people having separate and insular communities,” she says.
“The most extreme example of this is what we saw with the rape gangs where people who’ve been coming to this country, from the 60s, from a particular region and sub-community in Pakistan, get here, stay insular, not interested in integration.
“And then you start seeing very, very toxic, I would say evil habits propagating and no-one doing anything about it because they’re separate.
“We have to make sure that we have a dominant culture in our country, and the people who move here want to help make the UK a better place.
“Our country is not a hotel, it’s not a dormitory, this is our home.”
Ms Badenoch is asked about whether she believes the UK should accept immigrants from some countries and not from others.
“When you have low skilled immigration from people who have no interest in integrating, you will have a problem, that is something that needs to be looked at,” she says.
“We should not treat someone that has no skills, no education, English, no skills, the same as a wealthy doctor who has come from a country close by like France.
“At the moment that is what is happening we can’t do that it is not sustainable. We need to be able to make sure that the people who are coming to our country contribute.”
The conversation with Kemi Badenoch now turns to speculation that a third runway could be built at Heathrow Airport.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves today refused to comment on these rumours, despite briefings that she is in favour of expansion.
Ms Badenoch says she would “certainly” back a third runway at the UK’s busiest airport.
She adds that she has “voted in support of third runway” in the past.
“I know that it is very difficult for a lot of people when there’s an airport in your area,” Ms Badenoch explains.
“I know, because I’m the MP for an airport as well. Stansted Airport is in my constituency.”
The Tory leader says she has “never opposed growth or development”, but wants to make sure “it is done in the right way”.
“I think it is important that we deliver infrastructure and if Heathrow Airport thinks that it is deliverable within the criteria that it set, then I think we should be honest and do the right thing,” Ms Badenoch adds.
“I voted for it before, why would I change my mind?
“With me you will always get a clear answer.”
So would she back a third runway?
“I certainly will, yes.”
Kemi Badenoch is next up on Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips.
The Tory leader is asked about the Southport murders and the minimum 52-year jail sentence received by Axel Rudakubana.
The teenager was not able to receive a whole life order – which would mean he could never be released from jail – as he did not turn 18 until just after he committed the murders.
“I think the fact that if he had done this 10 days later, he would have been eligible for a whole life sentence is something we should look at,” Ms Badenoch says.
“I think we could see some judicial discretion, but he has a very long sentence.
“What I want to make sure is victims don’t have to see their perpetrators after such heinous crimes, and that’s one of the reasons I believe people should go to prison for life.
“It’s unfortunate that he escaped that just by being that little bit younger.”
Social media ‘should do more’
Ms Badenoch is asked by Trevor whether social media platforms should be playing a bigger role in censoring or policing material online.
She says social media “should do more” but issues like this, and banning the sale of knives online, “will only ever go so far”.
“We need to look at the root of where these behaviours come from, whether it is extremist ideology of whatever flavour, whether it’s religious or related to hate to a particular group or sex.
“We need to start looking more at how we bring more people into society and integrate them on a range of issues.”
Rachel Reeves says she’s “absolutely happy” to look at the UK joining an arrangement between the EU and neighbouring countries designed to facilitate tariff-free trading.
The EU’s new trade chief Maros Sefcovic told the BBC this week that he was open to Britain joining the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM) as part of a post-Brexit “reset”.
Asked by Trevor Phillips whether the UK would join, the chancellor says it was “really interesting” to hear Mr Sefcovic’s comments that the UK might be welcome.
“We are absolutely happy to look at those proposals because we know the deal that the previous government secured is not working well enough,” she says.
“It’s not working well enough for small businesses trying to export, and it’s not working well enough for larger businesses either.
“We’re grown up enough to admit that, whereas the previous government said there were no problems at all.
“Where there are constructive ideas, we are happy to look at them as long as they are consistent with the red lines we set out in our manifesto.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has once again refused to comment on speculation that she could back a third runway being built at Heathrow Airport.
Asked if this will form part of her plan to kickstart growth, Ms Reeves says: “I’m not going to comment on speculation.”
Why not?
“Because that’s speculation. And we’ll set out our plans in our own way.”
Asked again, the chancellor says: “We’ll set out our plans.
“But you have seen this week… that we’re going to make it easier to get stuff built in Britain, whether that’s transport infrastructure, energy infrastructure or indeed housing.
“For too long, governments have backed the blockers and not the builders, and that’s going to change.”
She adds that the government will “make announcements about investments when we are ready to”.
Ms Reeves suggests a plan for Heathrow Airport will come after a collective cabinet decision.
Now joining Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips is Chancellor Rachel Reeves.
They begin their conversation on the Southport murders, and criticism of the government for not sharing details of Axel Rudakubana’s past sooner.
Asked if she would accept that the system failed the three murdered girls, Ms Reeves agrees the attack was an “evil, cowardly act”.
She says: “It’s right that there’s now a public inquiry to establish what on earth went wrong, that the man was referred three times to Prevent, he had been found carrying a knife on multiple occasions and he’d attacked a boy he was at school with.
“And yet he was able to slip through the system. And so it is absolutely essential that we learn lessons not just to provide some sort of understanding for the families – who’ve lost their loved ones, but also to stop anything like this ever happening again.
“And no stone should be left unturned in that inquiry.”
She went on to defend ministers for not mentioning a terror element in the incident before Rudakubana pleaded guilty to murder.
“It’s really important that when a government speaks, when ministers speak about something before there’s been a trial, that people are very careful about the words that they use,” the chancellor says.
“Because if a government of any colour added anything to prejudice a trial, then that minister would never be forgiven.
“And so ministers do have to use words with caution.”
Ms Reeves adds that a public inquiry into the attack “needs to establish” how anti-terrorism programme Prevent identifies potential threats.
She says: “My understanding of this case is because they didn’t think that the killer had an ideology and that therefore, he wasn’t at risk in the same way that somebody who might have, an ideological motive might.
“But just because you don’t have an ideological motive doesn’t mean that you can’t be a mass killer and incredibly dangerous.”
Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips is live on Sky News.
Join us until 10am as we discuss all the latest in Westminster – and beyond – with a host of well-informed guests and a panel of experts.
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By Jack Parker, Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips producer
When Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch sit down for Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, expect questions on failures in the government’s Prevent counter-extremism strategy to be central.
Scrutiny of Prevent intensified this week after it emerged Southport triple killer Axel Rudakubana was referred on three occasions between 2019 and 2021, but was each time ruled not to be a terrorism risk.
Announcing a public inquiry on Tuesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the failure “goes deeper” than issues of funding cuts and immigration.
How the scheme is funded will likely still be a line of inquiry.
Since 2015, all 317 local authorities in England have been legally required to deliver Prevent. But the centralised funding envelope from the Home Office is limited, and its current size is opaque.
The most recent figures date back four years. They show the Home Office spent £49.1m on Prevent in 2020/21 – enough to fund NHS England for just 2.5 hours.
An independent review in 2023 criticised the “postcode lottery” of whether local authorities deliver Prevent effectively, recommending a more regionalised approach to boost consistency.
The then-Conservative government responded by introducing regional Prevent advisers, but cut the number of local authorities getting dedicated funding from 42 to the 20 areas considered to contain the highest threat.
For national security reasons, the government does not clarify which 20 areas get funding.
The Home Office confirmed to Sky News that all local authorities not receiving specific funding must deliver Prevent from within their existing budgets – at a time when they’re particularly squeezed.
The Local Government Association estimates a quarter of councils could effectively declare bankruptcy within two years, largely the knock-on effect of high inflation and the Covid pandemic.
But while in opposition last March, Chancellor Rachel Reeves told Sky’s Trevor Phillips that Labour would not bail out bankrupt councils.
By law local authorities must balance their books yet cannot raise council tax by more than 5% a year without the government’s permission.
Labour-run Birmingham City Council this week requested a 9.9% tax rise, which the government has hinted it will reject.
Budgets are also increasingly strained by the growing cost of social care. Analysis for Sky News’ Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips found councils now spend 30% of their annual budgets on social care, up from 24% just ten years ago.
That’s leaving less money for other council responsibilities like road maintenance, bin collections and libraries. Nonetheless, police funding has been relatively insulated, growing £2bn in real terms since 2014/15, during which time tens of thousands of extra officers have been recruited.
The Home Office is facing a squeeze itself, as one of just three departments (alongside the Cabinet Office and the Department for Transport) expecting a real-terms budget cut next year.
In the autumn budget, the chancellor shaved away £0.5bn, which would fund Prevent ten times over. The Treasury argues this is an artificial budget cut, caused by “significant savings” of £4bn from scrapping the Rwanda asylum scheme.
Last month, the government also announced a ring-fenced £140m boost for counter-terrorism policing, though it’s unclear how much of this is allocated to Prevent.
Donald Trump has insisted he has a “very good relationship” with Sir Keir Starmer, adding the prime minister has done a “very good job thus far”.
Speaking onboard Air Force One, Mr Trump told the BBC the pair would be having a phone call “over the next 24 hours”.
“I get along with him well. I like him a lot,” Mr Trump said.
“He’s liberal, which is a bit different from me, but I think he’s a very good person and I think he’s done a very good job thus far.
“He’s represented his country in terms of philosophy.
“I may not agree with his philosophy, but I have a very good relationship with him.”
The US president added the UK was being considered as the destination for the first international trip of his second term.
He said: “It could be Saudi Arabia, it could be UK. Traditionally it could be UK.”
Sir Keir most recently met with Mr Trump at Trump Tower in New York during the presidential campaign.
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