This is an audio transcript of the Political Fix podcast episode: ‘The right to die — who should have the final say?’
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Lucy Fisher
Hello, I’m Lucy Fisher and this is Political Fix from the Financial Times. Welcome. Coming up, it’s been a crunch week in parliament for the assisted dying bill. A key safeguard has been changed — the need for a High Court judge to sign off cases. Is it a sensible efficiency or a move that could sink the legislation? Plus, Europe is reeling from the US’s extraordinary intervention on Ukraine. What happens next and what does it mean for Britain and its attitude to defence? To discuss it all, I’m joined by my colleague Stephen Bush. Hi, Stephen.
Stephen Bush
Hi, Lucy.
Lucy Fisher
Robert Shrimsley. Hi, Robert.
Robert Shrimsley
Hello, Lucy.
Lucy Fisher
And Laura Hughes. Hi, Laura.
Laura Hughes
Hello.
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Lucy Fisher
So let’s kick off talking about assisted dying, obviously one of the most consequential social changes in decades if it goes ahead. But it’s been a really knotty week of fierce and emotional wranglings in parliament. Laura, you’ve been covering this in and out for months. You’ve been on the pod before to talk about it. Just get us up to speed on what’s happened this week.
Laura Hughes
So it’s been a confusing whirlwind of a week because there’s been a massive row effectively over an amendment. The author of the bill has proposed at the very last minute, which massively and quite dramatically does change the shape of what it looks like. So Kim Leadbeater, whose bill this is, very late on Monday was briefing newspapers that she was going to remove in this amendment a requirement for a High Court judge to sign off on any application and instead replace that with a panel of experts which might include a senior legal expert, but would not be a High Court judge.
And for many MPs, this is seen as watering down the bill. And it’s fed into arguments about a slippery slope — you know, the law will change, etc. Why is it already changing so dramatically before it’s even been passed? And it has raised questions about the viability of the bill. It’s also raised serious considerations and questions about just the legislative process, which underlines this whole change. And so it’s been quite a contentious week.
And whilst Kim Leadbeater is arguing that it strengthens her bill, others are saying it doesn’t. Now, questions as to whether or not MPs are gonna change their mind, could the whole shape of this move considerably? Will it pass? Will it not?
Lucy Fisher
Well, we’ll get into all of that. Robert, Laura outlines two kind of key debates here. One is about the substance. So let’s talk about that first. How big a difference is it moving from the initial proposal for two doctors to sign off for requests for a terminally ill person to end their life that would then be signed off by a judge after speaking to one of the medics to what is now being proposed, which is that a person’s application to end their own life would be reviewed by a panel of psychiatrists and social workers, which was chaired by a senior legal figure who would not necessarily be a judge.
Robert Shrimsley
Well, I think there are, unfortunately, two conflicting ways of looking at what’s happened, Lucy. I’ve always thought the measure that the idea that it would have to be signed off by High Court judges was a stupid idea because you could see the courts already busy being bombarded with having to make these decisions. It doesn’t happen anywhere else. And it was one of those extra measures put in to reassure people that it would really, really, really be safe in Britain. But it was never really workable.
And what’s happened is the government, which is actually behind and assisting quite heavily in a number of the amendments, has just made it clear that this isn’t viable. So I actually think the new idea is a better one. But the problem is, having offered that safeguard, it does weaken the bill for some people who are potentially wavering. So even though I think it’s the correct move, I think it’s made their job a lot harder.
Lucy Fisher
And Stephen, it sort of plays into this idea that some MPs who are tentatively supporting the bill and are now wavering have that this legislation is a bit of a dog’s dinner because the initial proposal of a High Court judge being involved in every single application was sold by Kim Leadbeater, as Laura made clear, as a key safeguard. So to change that, even if it is a good idea, as Robert would argue it is, it just sort of casts more doubt on the process of how this legislation is being brought forward.
Stephen Bush
Yeah. Well, one of the reasons why the vote in favour at second reading was so large is there are a lot of MPs who didn’t want to let the issue fade away. They knew it would be seen as a defeat for it in principle. Obviously, that’s what second reading is about. But they have a huge number of doubts about the underlying assumptions of this bill, which is it consciously envisages a quite limited number of use cases for the right to die. And lots of people, I think, correctly think that would not be the end form of the legislation.
But broadly speaking, whenever you make any form of big public policy change, you build on whatever your starting point is. And I think it does underline the anxiety some MPs have. And this is a very poor approach to ensuring the right to die and enshrining into legislation.
I’m not . . . Yeah, Robert’s exactly right. The original sin here was a mechanism which would have meant that the UK would have legalised assisted dying in practice. But broadly speaking, given that you have to have a terminal diagnosis of six months and there are very few people in the United Kingdom who get a court date within six months, it did raise the possibility that we would effectively have a merely theoretical right to die. And it just, yeah, it does just make people go, we shouldn’t be doing this via a private member’s bill, or that’s traditionally been how issues of conscience have been passed. Oh yeah, the government needs to take more control of this legislation, etc. So it does potentially imperil the passage of the bill.
Robert Shrimsley
Can I just push back on one point, because I think there’s a narrative that’s being developed against this bill by its opponents that you’ve got quite a lot of people who are absolutely opposed to the principle of assisted dying. And what they’re doing is attacking the bill on a process argument and saying the procedure isn’t right. We’re not being allowed to do this. We’re not having this amendment called. And they’re trying to make out that this is an absolute chaos and shambles when in fact, almost all major legislation has amendments tabled to it while it’s working its way through. Things change, things develop.
And although there are issues with this bill and I do think what happened this week undoubtedly hurt the cause, the narrative that’s being developed that this is all a shambles and there is . . . It is a sort of cover for people who want to kill the bill anyway and are often using the amendments in the process to water it down and water it down to the point that it becomes meaningless. So one has to at least push back on that notion a little bit, I think.
Lucy Fisher
(Inaudible) Robert, and do you think it’s sort of illegitimate or there’s a bit of foul play going on with people who are raising concerns? Is it fair to say that’s happening on both sides? I mean, some people think this safeguard was put in at the beginning to convince people when it was always clear it wouldn’t work, when analysis suggested it would take up 34,000 hours of judicial time and snarl up a process that’s already facing lots of backlogs in the family courts.
Robert Shrimsley
Yeah, I mean, I think on the judge point, I think what you’re seeing actually is the covert involvement of the government quite heavily. We know that Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary — she’s not a supporter of this bill, by the way — has pushed very hard to get this judge measure changed.
And so I think what you’re seeing is behind the scenes I was talking to one of the major figures involved in this bill earlier this week and they were saying, you know, they’re getting a lot of civil service backing, a lot of government help tabling amendments. And I think what you’re seeing is quietly the government trying to knock the worst bits of this bill out.
And of course, you also have people who I think Stephen was alluding to who think the bill doesn’t go far enough and would like to see it extended for people with degenerative diseases, for example. But I think those people are sort of acting within the spirit of the bill and the spirit of the second reading vote.
What I think you’ve got on the other side are people who are absolutely opposed to this, who don’t want to see it go through and believe that if they can weaken it, push back on the safeguards, actually make out this argument, it’s not being done properly, they can kill the whole measure. And so I don’t think it’s an entirely good-faith exercise by those who are claiming to be doing this simply to make it more rigorous.
Lucy Fisher
Laura, you’ve been speaking to lots of experts and you had a brilliant interview earlier this week with Baroness Brenda Hale, the former president of the UK Supreme Court, she of the spider brooch during the Brexit years. She had a view that judges should be involved. Perhaps they could be at a level below High Court judge, perhaps circuit or district judges.
I just wanted to ask about this broader issue of the expert views that have been taken, because another sort of source of claim and counterclaim is that at this crucial committee stage we’ve been seeing in parliament is that Kim Leadbeater has been taking more evidence from voices essentially in support of her bill rather than from experts. For example, people giving testimony on coercive control that might speak to arguments against it. You’ve been following it closely. What’s your take on the weighting of the expert evidence they’ve been looking at?
Laura Hughes
Yeah, I mean, that argument has been made. If you were looking at it, though, I guess from the perspective of trying to be proactive in pushing it through and making it the strongest legislation you can, you can understand why she’s called some of the experts she has. And Chris Whitty, it was a really balanced, I thought, witness at that committee stage.
Lucy Fisher
The chief medical officer.
Laura Hughes
Yeah. And I mean, I think another criticism, though, that is maybe even more valid is the kind of the weighting of the MPs on the committee, the majority of whom did actually vote in favour of the bill. So that is one argument. It’s so heated though that you can argue it both ways.
I think there have been a range of views given at that committee. I don’t think it would be fair to say that they all spoke in favour and all sat there and said, yes, this is a tremendous idea. Push on. I think it has been constructive conversations and it’s raised really interesting questions on where, for example, in the NHS would this service sit? Would it be something offered inside the NHS? Would it be outside? Could we see a system that we saw when abortion changes were made and charities effectively set up clinics that were funded by the NHS? So it has got into really good areas of policy and how it would work. So I think that is a little bit unfair. But of course there are questions about how that whole thing is happening.
And back to the point on the judge change, I think there’s a question as to whether or not it was wise for Kim Leadbeater herself to table this amendment. Why did it come from her, because it has slightly fed into critics’ arguments of slippery slope, things changing.
Lucy Fisher
Can I ask you, I think Robert sort of hinted at this, but there is this suggestion that this is the government pulling the strings. They wanted this change, but it’s been presented by her and that’s created a sense of intrigue. Has this come from her? Has this come from ministers, officials? What’s your take on this?
Laura Hughes
I mean, she . . . Her team is sort of she would really insist that she’s not having her strings pulled by the government. And she’s stuck in a really unfortunate position, I think. She’s obviously under a lot of heat and actually she’s been the one to stand up and take this on. She knows this is obviously in favour of it. I’m sure there are conversations that clearly are happening and have happened.
And I do want to speak a little bit in her defence. Whatever your views are, this is an impossible position she’s almost been put in and it was quite brave of her to take this on. And she’s listening clearly to what people are telling her. And these assessments have been done by various government departments — health, justice — after the bill was passed. And she’s taking on that feedback. And in her mind, she’s trying to strengthen it and she’s trying to do things she thinks are in the best interests of getting this bill passed. You can also see why critics can just jump on it and say she’s being told what to do and she hasn’t got a grip on it. She’s not experienced enough to take on such a huge topic so early on in her parliamentary career.
Lucy Fisher
Robert, another area there are still questions is about the cost of this. It’s past the sort of the finance stage, which, again, some critics are saying they’re worried it’s a blank cheque. Do you think there needs to be more detail set out about how it would be funded?
Robert Shrimsley
Well, it can never do any harm for you to know how things are going to be funded. Again, I think this comes back to the point of people trying to pick at this bill in lots of different ways. But there are lots and lots of questions.
I mean, I have to say, I think the whole process has been strange. I was very impressed and I spent quite a bit of time studying what happened in Jersey where they had a couple of citizens’ juries on this. And what they did, they had a process where essentially they first of all took the decision in principle and then they went into the how are we going to make this work? What are the practices of this?
And interestingly, once they went into the safeguards and practices, support for it increased because people began to feel satisfied that their arguments were being listened to. You don’t get the sense that is happening here. I mean, I don’t think it’s surprising, by the way, that the committee has a bias towards supporters. I mean, generally, legislative committees do have, you know, a majority of people on them who will support the measure.
But I think what isn’t happening is that this measure is not yet winning a broader level of support, which you would hoped it would do once the vote in principle had been taken. And I think that’s the fault of both sides. I think the way this has been structured has not been ideal and the way people have gone after it has made it less inclusive and raises the question whether at some point the government ought to simply take it over, although that carries all kinds of other problems, too.
Lucy Fisher
I’m interested in all your views on whether you think it’s actually gonna pass now. So it was a majority of 55 MPs at that second reading, so 28 MPs would need to change their mind from yes to no to scupper the bill. That feels quite a lot to me on the one hand. And yet, you know, there is a lot of grumbling across the media of people who said they supported it and they’re now wavering. I don’t know. What do you think, Stephen? Is sentiment or not-sentiment cooling or not?
Stephen Bush
I think it’s too early to tell, not least because the . . . Like, the other arm of this is the House of Lords, which will be able to take as long as it over it wants and where there’s a lot more legal expertise. So it could end up yet looking different again. But yeah, look, I think as it stands, I think it would pass by a reduced majority, but it is very much in flux.
I think Robert is exactly right, that one problem with the the way we’ve approached this, there is far too much ambiguity among the members of the MP or committee stage about whether or not what they actually want to do by calling certain witnesses is address a genuine concern or if they want to use the genuine concern as a way of eroding support for the bill.
And, you know, both are politically legitimate things to want to do, but they are obviously incompatible, right? That if what you want to do is just sit around and go, oh, coercive control is a problem, well fine, that is a great argument to vote against it at second reading and at third reading. But it’s not actually a helpful thing to say at committee stage and it is therefore quite difficult to work out what will happen with this legislation because I think in the House of Lords where you will get a better quality of scrutiny from people who have concern about some of the legislative kinks in this process, that might mean that it comes back to MP and people go, oh, you can’t solve the coercive control problem. Therefore I will vote against. But I think the committee stage process on the House of Commons side is probably not going to clarify one way or the other whether or not the ultimate form of this legislation will pass.
Laura Hughes
No. And this feels like a really messy week and everyone’s very emotional and people are speaking out. They’re speaking to different newspapers and everyone’s trying to get numbers. But I just . . . My gut feeling is that until you actually know what you’re voting on and you can sit down and you’ve had a bit more time, it is really hard to say I think it still might . . . I still think it might go through. This is just a really difficult week and it’s not been played very well politically, I don’t think, from the change in the law side at all. And they should learn the lessons from this week if they want to get it through. I still think it . . . I still think it might.
Lucy Fisher
Robert?
Robert Shrimsley
Well, I mean, like Stephen, I’m just not sure at this stage. I don’t think the majority was large enough to be totally confident that support won’t slip away. The only thing I would say is that the principle of assisted dying is very heavily supported in the country. And so although there are some very strong and strident voices against this in some newsrooms, and Asians are coming out against, there is a strong will for this in the general public. So, I mean, I still think on balance it will probably sneak through. But there are some rocky, rocky days ahead. And as I said, an element of me thinks at some point the government is gonna have to step in a little bit more aggressively than it has, even though it will have to remain a free vote right through.
Lucy Fisher
And then, Robert, in the Lords, you know, I think we’re gonna hear a lot more faith-based arguments. Some have been put forward in the Commons. Is that a sort of a valid part of this debate? I’m just thinking back to when this all kicked off in the autumn. Lord Faulkner, former Lord Chancellor, who is very much kind of working with Kim Leadbeater on this bill, sort of stepped in when Shabana Mahmood, the first female Muslim in the cabinet, said she was sort of against it on faith-based grounds to say that actually, it was secular views that were more objective than spiritual objections. What do you think about that?
Robert Shrimsley
It’s a difficult one, isn’t it, because on the one hand, you know, why should your faith affect my death? I don’t see why your religious views should govern my decision-making if I don’t share them. On the other hand, the one thing I will say is that I do think that when people openly oppose this on faith-based grounds, I have a lot more sympathy for them than when people who are fundamentally against this on faith-based grounds come up with other reasons to oppose it using issues like safeguarding or a sudden interest in hospice care or process. But at least people making the faith argument openly are being honest in their position.
It’s not a view I agree with because I think people should be free to make their own decisions. And I’ve always thought it’s wrong that the only person with no say over how you die is the person doing the dying. But at least it’s open.
Stephen Bush
I think also the thing which is really useful about the spiritual argument against it is it is important for all of us to reflect on the fact that if this legislation passes, that is a fundamental change, particularly given our particular model, our particular solution to the question of how do you get free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare, right? That is a major change in the type of state and the type of society that we are.
So whether we’re godless atheists like myself or not, it is worth reflecting on the very useful challenge that the religious case against doing this does pose. And I think Robert’s exactly right. That’s actually much more helpful when it comes explicitly than like one of the reasons why this process hasn’t been good is that we’ve done, I think, collectively the political class has done a very poor job of discussing this legislation as well as it did in 2015, actually, I think.
The other missing part, that sort of the dog hasn’t barked yet, is that we have a government that is basically going we don’t have a solution to this problem of social care yet, but the fix you do for social care does influence the level of protection from coercion, the incentives people will have to end their lives sooner because at the moment, we essentially do have a situation where if you get an illness, there’s a kind of genetic lottery of whether or not that will destroy and erode all of your family savings. And so I do think at some point, hopefully, we’ll realise we do have to discuss both sort of arm in arm the right to die and whatever the solution to the social care crisis is.
Lucy Fisher
Because that’s one element is come into debate or at least come to the forefront this week, Laura, isn’t it, that someone could have a financial incentive that would be permissible in the choice they made about their death? If they had a terminal illness and six months to live, they might choose to die sooner to protect the savings that they left to their family. And there’s nothing in this legislation that would stop that. I think that’s a sort of argument that’s really fascinated a lot of people.
Laura Hughes
It is, actually. And I think, though, as a society, we have to decide whether or not that is acceptable, actually. Is it OK legally for you to say that’s your reason — you want to protect your finances and pass it on to your family? Is that coercion or is that someone looking to look after their loved ones? Is it a good or a bad thing? That’s actually quite a difficult, I think, argument for the state to come down and say is right or wrong.
Stephen Bush
Not these things. The slight weirdness of that debate, and I’m aware I’m a hypocrite as the one who brought it up, right, is that the state says, if you put your family inheritance in a trust or a partnership, you can protect your inheritance in that way. But if at the end of my life I go, well, actually, I would quite like to be able to like leave my flat to my nephew, that’s apparently illegitimate. But if I put the flat in a trust, it would have been fine, you know. I mean, like, so we do already accept and indeed, it’s actually the most cherished thing.
It’s why inheritance tax is such a politically toxic thing to change. We do accept that most people prioritise leaving something for their children and their loved ones when they die. And so I think it is one of the most thorny parts of this debate, but it is actually a really important part to nail and get right because understandably, people do want their end-of-life decisions not to leave their families out of pocket.
Laura Hughes
And it’s something I think real families actually talk about and sometimes just sort of joke about. Don’t stick me in that care home and spend that much money. You know, we really do talk about it. And I think this bill and this whole conversation, these are the real human decisions that we’re all gonna have to make and that we are already talking about now. What is this law gonna mean for it?
And just on the religious point, I think, you know, it’s obviously a very calculated decision from some campaign groups not to talk about religion because they see society being one that doesn’t respond to those arguments in the way they might have done a hundred years ago. And that is why they’re doing it, but I agree, it’s also . . . It’s sometimes refreshing, actually, when you do have a religious figure coming out and saying it. And it’s hard to argue and counter against it. And it has been missing, I think, a little bit. People are scared about talking about it from that perspective, but it’s obviously a very valid one and you have your right to have it.
Lucy Fisher
And we should point out that there are secular organisations like Liberty, a human rights organisation, that, you know, is not supporting this legislation which is on purely secular grounds.
Robert, there have been 350 amendments tabled to this legislation. Are there any others in particular that have caught your eye that you think, you know, would be really good to improve it or should definitely be discarded?
Robert Shrimsley
Yes. I mean, I think the one that interested me is the amendment to try and extend the scope of this to cover people who have terrible degenerative illnesses like motor neurone disease, who I think currently are outside the scope of the measure or probably outside it.
Clearly, doctors can decide what is and isn’t a terminal diagnosis and those people are left outside to face a potentially very awful and painful death. But I think the issue here is that you’re trying to have a social, what I consider to be a social advance.
And you can’t let the best be the enemy of the good. And saying, no, look, we’re not going to include people with mental conditions, with mental health issues. We’re not going to have degenerative illnesses. You’ve got to be dying and dying quite soon before this is available to you is, I think, a way of providing some of the reassurances that people talk about when they say they don’t want coercive control, they don’t want people pushed into dying.
If you actually are able to say, look, this person probably only has six months to live. Maybe they’ll hang on for another four or four and a half and give up when the pain is too great. I think that gives you a degree of narrowness of the bill which says we are keeping this carefully controlled.
Lucy Fisher
Stephen? Laura?
Stephen Bush
Well, yeah, I mean, I realise that also to me is the standout amendment, although I have the reverse perspective on it, which is that I completely get the argument that, you know, you don’t wanna scare the horses. And it’s this you’re asking people to take this quite big leap in terms of, you know, the type of country we are, etc.
But I think for so many people around the country, including people who follow politics closely, the thing they think will change with assisted dying is if you get a degenerative illness with an uncertain prognosis, you won’t die in incredible and avoidable agony.
I think if you want to have a procedure for the right to end your life that is safe, secure, all of the rest of it, you have to start, I think, from what most people’s idea of what that right would involve, which does include degenerative illnesses. It rightly, in my view, doesn’t include depression and other things like that. But I think the kind of the original sin, as it were, of this legislation is it’s focused a little bit, it’s focused far too much on reassuring people.
And that is why it’s ended up with this slight hodgepodge of not meeting the right that most people imagine and would like when they hear about this legislation and having a safeguard that either would be too hard to safeguard because in practice you wouldn’t get a court date or is inadequate for people who have degenerative illnesses.
Laura Hughes
Interesting, I asked Baroness Hale whether there are any other amendments that she was interested in that might change the shape of the bill and she spoke in favour and said it’d be a significant improvement to look at extending it to 12 months for applicants that do have these neurological conditions who might not have the mental capacity to make such a decision six months within the end of their life.
And I thought that was interesting. It just sort of felt if you’re going to do this, do it properly because you then avoid these arguments later down in the slippery slope. If you’re gonna expand it, do it. Now is the moment to move into it and make your argument and make it sensibly and well. But interesting, Kim Leadbeater doesn’t support extending it to 12 months. I’m not sure that one will get through.
Lucy Fisher
Laura Hughes, public policy correspondent, thanks for joining.
Laura Hughes
Thank you, Lucy.
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Lucy Fisher
We’ve also seen monumental movements on Ukraine this week. Donald Trump on Wednesday said that after talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin that their delegations would start negotiations immediately to end the war, blindsiding European capitals. Robert, what’s your reaction to this sort of seismic move of the past few days on Ukraine?
Robert Shrimsley
It’s quite a tricky one. I have to say actually my first instinct and my struggle was that there was a lot to be worried about here, that the steps that Donald Trump has taken is just gonna be me and Vladimir Putin sorting it all out, you know. We’re gonna come up with it. We’re gonna get Europe to pay and Europe to police it but they’re not gonna be in the room.
And Trump already saying he’s ruled out Nato membership and he’s ruled out any return to 2014 boundaries, even though I think both of those were where we were gonna end up. It felt like he’d given a lot away to Vladimir Putin from the outset and also added to comments made by Pete Hegseth, his defence secretary, about America not being the primary guarantor of defence of the security of Europe. This all seemed, and still, I think, seems very, very worrying.
However, I will just say I did read a little earlier a piece by Lawrence Friedman, which I think the FT is publishing today. And his argument was that actually, Trump has put Putin in a bit of a spot because he’s got to figure out what concessions he’s now prepared to make. And Trump has left him in this position where he’s got to make the next move. And none of these moves are necessarily as helpful to him as you think. So maybe my first reaction was overly worried.
Lucy Fisher
That is interesting. I mean, Stephen, Robert is probably right that we just get to the end point faster, but Trump has kind of given up the negotiating position, hasn’t he, by making the concessions about the border and Nato membership?
Stephen Bush
Yeah. And also, as importantly, he’s underlined that he has no particular interest in the concerns or interests of the democracies of Europe, right? And then ultimately, it’s not just the content of what he said. Those were not conversations in which, you know, he talked to Ukraine first or talked to the EU27 or talked to the United Kingdom first, which underlines the existential challenge that it poses for all of us here in Europe and for governments to respond to that.
Lucy Fisher
Well, it’s a good moment to sort of bring in what this means for the UK. Our Political Fix regular and colleague George Parker and I worked on a piece this week looking at the gap between what the Treasury wants to spend on defence, which is basically sticking to 2.3 per cent of GDP, what Labour has promised in its manifesto, which is 2.5 per cent of GDP, and what the military chiefs of the British forces are wanting to get to, which is 2.65 per cent. The difference with the Treasury and the military chiefs is worth about 10bn a year, so it is quite significant.
Robert, is this sort of pointless wrangling between different parts of the UK administration on this issue if there’s gonna need to be a Europe wide move to sort of boost defence spending and be more self-reliant and less reliant on the US?
Robert Shrimsley
I think to a degree, yeah, but I think the fact is Britain, like a number of European countries, is going to have to spend more. And although, you know, one would expect the military to be making arguments that maximise the pressure on the government to give more money to their services, they are right. And I think the pressure to find the money somehow is going to be very, very acute.
I have to say, not being a defence specialist myself, I always wonder about the argument that says the views defence spending as a percentage of GDP rather than saying, what do we need to spend it on? How can we spend it well? Are we spending it in the right way? But I suppose as a sort of lever to increase spending generally, it is the right thing. I don’t think there’s any room around this one, and I think the Treasury is gonna have to find a way to come up with the funding. And it’s not a simple matter.
Lucy Fisher
And Stephen, you’ve been writing about this this week, how the government squares its economic imperative, funnelling more money into infrastructure and housing, plus its strategic imperative, more money for defence, with Rachel Reeves’ fiscal rules.
Stephen Bush
Yeah, and I think the problem is, parking for a moment the question about whether or not the government’s fiscal rule is the most well designed rule — spoiler alert, it’s not — you can’t really meet the aim of more spending for infrastructure, which obviously an economic imperative. The electoral imperative of make the public services a bit better and the security imperative of be able to defend ourselves and take action in our own theatre without private consumption taking a bit of a hit, right? So it’s very hard to see how she can do all of that without either breaking one of those imperatives or breaking that manifesto commitment on tax. It is very difficult.
I mean, I agree with Robert on percentage targets. I’m always reminded of the story about how the EU’s 3 per cent rule arose, which was when France’s then finance minister was like, well, we’re already at 1.5 so 2, that’s a bit too close. 2.5, that seems weirdly precise, so I guess it’s 3. And very much that the Nato target was, you know, the nations of Europe getting together after the premier and going, what should we do? Well, that number is something some of us already hit. That number’s a round figure. Oh, we’re gonna pick this one.
But for the United Kingdom in particular, whereas you know, you know much better than me, right? We’ve had a series of procurement failures. We have an MoD which many people think needs serious reform if it’s going to meet the same, and we do not have an armed forces that is capable of acting independently or doing power protection or any of the things that you would want it to do. In some ways, the percentage target is kind of a bit moot. Clearly, the number needs to go up quite a lot. Clearly, the MoD needs quite serious reforms and clearly none of that is compatible with the promises that the Labour party made at the last election.
Lucy Fisher
Well, it’s gonna be a big weekend as the Munich Security Conference takes place with David Lammy, John Healey and all sorts of other defence and foreign ministers from across Nato, including of course the US, jetting into Munich. And perhaps the slightly grim irony that this discussion about Ukraine will play out in a city forever associated with fairly catastrophic appeasement of Hitler.
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We’ve just got time left for stock picks. Robert, who are you buying or selling this week?
Robert Shrimsley
OK. So I think the person I’m going to light upon is Liz Kendall, the welfare and pension secretary, because we’re not too far away now from what is promised to be the major plan on welfare reform, particularly on cutting the numbers of people on sickness benefit and cutting the sickness benefit bill, which is enormous.
And I’ve been trying to debate whether I wanted to buy her or sell her on the basis of this, because there’s no question that going into this process is gonna upset an awful lot of people in her own party that if she does it properly, there are gonna be Labour MPs howling about withdrawal of benefits or making it much harder to keep benefits.
But I think in the end, I’m gonna buy her just because I think of my inherently optimistic and sunny nature that I just think this is such an important reform. It’s reform that’s got to work, not least for the reasons that Stephen was just outlining about the financial situation the government is in. I think welfare reform needs to really happen. And she is quite a tough reformer, so I’m gonna give her the benefit of doubt and buy her.
Lucy Fisher
Stephen, how about you?
Stephen Bush
I’m gonna cheat and I’m both going to sell Rachel Reeves, who obviously on the 27th of March is going to, you know, thanks to this combination of the OBR’s growth figures, these pressures on defence spending, etc, is going to stand up and do something highly unpopular, right? Whether it’s unpopular with the country, the markets, the Labour party or all three, if she’s really unlucky, it’s not gonna be a good couple of months to be a Treasury minister of any stripe and particularly not to be the chancellor.
So that one, but I felt also I should sell Kemi Badenoch because I thought we should probably mention her particularly poor PMQs this week.
Lucy Fisher
You’ve stolen mine. I was going to do that.
Stephen Bush
Sorry.
Lucy Fisher
No, no, go ahead. You say why you’re selling her and I’ll say why I’m selling her.
Stephen Bush
You know, I just think, you know, the donors are unhappy, the MPs are . . . Now, she’s got a real problem in the chamber in that there are very few Conservative MPs.
But, you know, she has that wall of silence behind her, which is never a good sign. The donors are unhappy because they don’t feel loved. And they also . . . They watch and they go like, well, if she’s not across this, what’s the point? You’ve got a resurgent party on the right.
And I just think . . . The thing I’ve been really struck by is the lack of an upward gradient. And so I just think she doesn’t seem to be turning it around, as, you know, you’ve written a very good piece about like, a hundred days, people think that you have until the devolved elections next year, which feels about right to me. But I just don’t think this is a set-up which is going to turn it around. And so I think the focus will be for most of the next year, well, if not her, who?
Lucy Fisher
|I totally agree. And for me too, it was PMQs more than reaching the 100-day mark on Monday and some of the grumbles that came out of the woodwork there that did it for me because she kept asking the same question without reacting to the fact that Keir Starmer had responded. And then he said, you know, you need to deviate from the script, this is getting tedious. But yeah, I thought that was a weakness that just left me shaking my head.
Well, that’s all we’ve got time for this week. Thanks for joining.
Robert Shrimsley
Thanks, Lucy.
Stephen Bush
Thanks, Lucy.
Lucy Fisher
And that’s it for this episode of the FT’s Political Fix. I’ve put links to subjects discussed in this episode in the show notes. Do check them out. They’re articles we’ve made free for Political Fix listeners.
There’s also a link there to Stephen’s award-winning Inside Politics newsletter. You’ll get 30 days free. And don’t forget to subscribe to the show. Plus, please do leave a review or a star rating. It really helps spread the word via the algorithm.
Political Fix was presented by me, Lucy Fisher, and produced by Lulu Smyth. Manuela Saragosa is the executive producer, and we had help this week from Fiona Symon. Original music by Breen Turner and sound engineering by Simon Panayi. The broadcast engineers are Andrew Georgiades and Rod Fitzgerald. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s global head of audio.
We’ll meet again here next week.
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