[0:00]Uh the curlers uh got the silver. >> I know. I'm very sad about that. That is an amazing achievement. >> That's hello. That's an amazing achievement. It >> is an amazing achievement. But as I said yesterday, I love their we faces and the
[0:11]we faces were sad. >> Yes. Canada got the gold. >> However, it's an amazing achievement and who knows what will happen in four years and every with all this attention and love to curling and strand and around
[0:22]the place >> and you had some of the people from a strand on your program. Did you? But we we actually ended up being astonished by Lee Ducet who was in to talk to us about Iran. She is a curler and she's
[0:34]Canadian. I couldn't stop her. >> Leet's a curler. >> She is. >> Well, I'm going to stop you because we need to get on with today's newscast when we're going to be talking about uh Andrew Mount Windsor. We're going to be
[0:44]talking about special educational needs for kids and the government's new plans. And we are going to talk about the creaking system of student finance. One of our viewers said that the government
[0:55]was behaving like a lone shark. So, we'll talk about all of that on this Sunday's newscast. >> Hello, it's Laura in the studio. >> Hello, it's Patty in the studio.
[1:07]>> And hello, it's Henry at home. >> Henry, it's a weekend with more woeful reading for the palace. >> Yeah, very much so. Very much so. And I
[1:17]think after the dramatic scenes of Andrew Mount Windsor's arrest this week, uh, which I experienced as a punter rather than a correspondent because I wasn't working. And I think that almost
[1:29]sort of enhanced the the drama and the sense of what a moment it was. Uh, you know, I think I think it's probably hard to see when there will come a weekend
[1:39]where there aren't difficult headlines for the royal family. You know, the fact is that the king's brother has been
[1:48]arrested and on suspicion of serious offenses, which we understand he denies, this is going to run and run and run.
[1:59]But the particular revelation which I think is probably most concerning for not just the monarchy but other parts of the British state today is the suggestion
[2:10]uh in the Sunday Times and elsewhere about what uh Metropolitan Police Protection officers may have done and what they may have seen or heard while
[2:20]they were protecting Andrew Mountbat and Windsor at the time as he was the Duke of York. And there also the questions that have come from Gordon Brown, the former prime minister's sort of detective work, writing letters about
[2:31]whether Andrew Mountban Windsor uses taxpayer funded jets and RAF bases to meet Epstein. So I think the interesting thing where this story has gone this weekend is it brings in the taxpayer. So
[2:42]was the taxpayers's resource and money abused in any way by Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's behavior? I'm not there speculating about the criminal case. that's about was he up to things in
[2:53]using taxpayer funded support in ways that would be seen as being inappropriate or indeed wrong. So it's quite interesting it's moved into that sort of ambit today.
[3:04]>> Yeah. And I'm very interested in the role of Gordon Brown. He's written to multiple police forces says the Sunday Telegraph today specifically on this Jets issue and the timeline is of note I
[3:15]would suggest in trying to answer what's going on with Detective Brown. There's an overlap between Gordon Brown's premiership and Andrew's trade envoy ship. That's right. And it almost looks
[3:27]like Gordon Brown's furious. >> I think he is furious. I mean, he made no secret that the fact he was absolutely furious about Peter Mandlesson's behavior during the time when he was prime minister and Peter Mandlesson was his business secretary
[3:38]and some of his detective work, whether he's Puarro or Tagert, I'm not sure, but some of that pertains to the time when he was the prime minister. and he as somebody who has always talked about integrity and standards in public life
[3:50]and taken those things very very seriously. It seems like he's kind of on a mission, you know, and he's going through these files himself, it appears and is raising questions and has written
[4:00]letters to lots of different police forces. So, I mean, again, we've been saying this for weeks now, haven't we? But this whole massive document dump on the other side of the Atlantic is just
[4:11]yielding strand after strand after strand in a very sort of complicated tapestry of embarrassment, horror, and questions
[4:22]about whether lots of people with power were behaving very badly. I think there is almost a sense with Gordon Brown, isn't there, of um atonement is perhaps too strong a word, but you know, I do
[4:34]think it clearly is a relevant point that he brought Peter Mandlesson back into government. He was the one who gave Peter Mandolson, Lord Mandlesson as he
[4:44]still is, the position in cabinet from which he was able, we have now learned to pass government information to Jeffrey Epstein for whatever purpose the
[4:55]Metropolitan Police are investigating. Um, and I so I think, you know, he clearly does feel uh a sort of responsibility to >> now do work that helps shed light on
[5:06]what exactly went on. uh you know both in the government and at the top of the monarchy or near the top of the monarchy while he was prime minister. But it I mean it is fascinating. I think there's
[5:17]a new biography of Gordon Brown out at the moment and you know it does it does sort of speak to the slightly different way in which he spent his post premership career than other prime
[5:27]ministers. I know you've spoken to him on your program a few times, Laura, about sort of campaigns he's done on poverty. Uh, and uh, you know, he doesn't live in London, which I think is just quite a striking thing for a former
[5:39]prime minister. And it is really interesting on a sort of human level. >> Yeah. I I went up to Kakotti to meet him sitting on a bunch of packing boxes
[5:48]counting L rolls for his multi-banks. And uh it's in it's not just slightly different from the Tony Blair Institute. It's completely and utterly different.
[5:59]And this detective work, Laura, you're suggesting to me he's going through the source files to get this stuff done. >> I mean, I don't know that, but it seems that way. And it and it could be that way. Remember though, also we know that
[6:11]he raised questions with the government about Peter Mandlesson's time in office before this all broke. What that was one of the news stories a few weeks ago was that Gordon Brown had asked questions about this. I think back in September.
[6:22]So, I don't know if he's sitting going through all of the files, but he's clearly taking this scandal incredibly seriously as somebody who has their own
[6:32]insight, their own experience, their own access to what people were doing. And don't forget when Andrew Bbaton Windsor was a trade envoy, that meant he was working on behalf >> of the government.
[6:43]>> And do we think, Henry, that the government will tinker with the line of succession? And if it does tinker with the line of succession, will it involve Andrew and Sarah Ferguson's children, Beatric and Eugenei?
[6:54]>> It feels to me pretty inevitable that it will tinker with the line of succession at some point to remove Andrew Mount and Windsor from it. Uh though it's presumably likely that that would happen
[7:05]after a legal process. So that might be some way down the track. Could, you know, even potentially be a different government. Who knows? Um in terms of the children, I mean, I think that's really one for a royal correspondent. I
[7:16]don't know what you you think but you know from my re I'm no royal expert but I hear that or I read rather that um the Prince of Wales William is quite close
[7:28]to Princess Beatatric and Princess Eugenie. And I think that gets to the uh the thing here which is you have a family drama overlapping on a
[7:37]constitutional and royal and national scandal and you there's been talk hasn't there for years and I'm interested in what Jenny Bond said on your program Patty but there's been talk for years
[7:48]about how uh the king the now king and certainly the future king uh William want a slimmed down monarchy >> but there are still these people who
[8:00]when they are born are very close to the top of the line of succession and then naturally over the decades become distant from the line of succession but often still have grace and favor
[8:10]residences as both of Andrew's daughters do you know is that really sustainable over the coming weeks months and years >> they do pay rent it's pointed out but it's true they do have access to them it's argued if the royal family had
[8:20]modernized previously with I mean they can't just do it themselves an would have been ahead of Andrew but because of the the the rule which we would now judged to be sexist. Uh women were told
[8:32]get to the backloaf by the rules of succession. So you once you start looking at the rules of succession, I mean I asked Andrew Mah and Jenny Bond if they could name the 11th and 13th in
[8:43]line to the throne and they couldn't because >> Jenny Bond couldn't. >> No, because it's Jenny Bond couldn't. >> Well, no, because it's such I went so far down the list because it's one of Eugenie's children is ahead of an under
[8:55]the existing rules. And that of course could be listened back to on your program because I would love to hear what she said in some detail. I think the question though is now prompting another bit of soularching about the
[9:06]role of the monarchy and should it change or has it been damaged and how much it has been damaged and I suppose the question for newscasters and we'd love to know what you think. Is this a case where you think well there's one
[9:16]person who appears to have done dreadful things in a family leave the rest of them alone. It doesn't make a difference. Or actually is this one of
[9:25]these things where his behavior was sort of tolerated and he was only gradually edged out of the family over many many years and actually the palace must have
[9:36]known things and therefore the whole institution gets dragged into disrepute because of this and you know we can't be sure where public opinion is going to end on this at all you know and different people of course will have
[9:48]different views but Boris Johnson who we spoke to about Ukraine as we were talking about yesterday he said actually in a way it is a good thing that this can happen in this country that the law
[10:00]you know affects everybody without fear or favor and he told us that actually the public's faith in the monarchy is sort of unshakable >> I think that the royal family is an
[10:10]amazingly resilient institution uh I think it has an absolutely unshakable place in the hearts of the British people the institution of the monarchy
[10:21]uh is has an unshakable place in the hearts of British people. It will it will it will go on uh it will recover from from all of this. I think the only conclusion I would draw from this is what an amazing and wonderful country
[10:31]this is. Uh in the sense that I don't think there are many countries around the world uh where uh you would have a figure like uh the the the former prince
[10:40]being uh you know subject to the law in the way that he clearly is and should be as the as the king has said. So, um, this will blow over.
[10:51]>> It's interesting, isn't it? Because we've talked about this a bit last week, that era when politicians wouldn't say anything at all about the monarchy. They just, I'm not going to say anything about that. No comment. Nice try. Jog on. Or get to the back of the queue,
[11:02]love. Uh, as Patty just said to me, um, that era has changed. That time has has passed. And yes, politicians are still careful about what they say, but the taboo of politicians commenting on
[11:13]anything to do with the royal family has disappeared, which is an interesting thing in and of itself. >> I mean, I think it is helped by the fact, and I think this gets to the line
[11:24]of succession stuff as well. To many people, Andrew Mountbat and Windsor will not be what they think of as the monarchy. What they think of as the monarchy is the king, the queen, and the
[11:36]direct descendants. you know the people who are going to be king uh that we know of i.e. William and George. Um and I do think you know there's an element isn't
[11:47]there where the discussion about the line of succession can be seen as a kind of displacement activity for a broader conversation about the monarchy because uh Andrew Mattbatton Windsor is is never
[11:59]going to be king whether they remove him from the line of succession or not. If he is, then some sort of unbelievable national tragedy has happened. And so, you know, I think you will probably see
[12:10]in parliament this coming week and perhaps over the coming months and years, those who want the government to engage more deeply with a bigger conversation about the monarchy trying to push it towards questions of what the
[12:22]king and what the future kings might be willing to do about this. >> So, today is a day of education, education, education. whether it's special needs for kids who need extra
[12:32]help at school or student finance which is rising up the rails as a political issue and how much graduates are having to pay back for their student loans.
[12:42]>> Yeah. Because the answer is more every time they pay off more if you're on the plan too. We'll come to that in a second. First, there's an acronym which
[12:52]has been dominating the airwaves on this subject. It is send sen d. >> Special educational needs or disabilities. And there's another
[13:00]acronym, EHCP, education and health care plan. Now, forget about the alphabet soup. The system that gives support to kids who need extra help at school is
[13:11]universally acknowledged to be a complete mess. This government has spent the last 18 months trying to work out ways to change it. But during that time there has been rising anxiety from lots
[13:22]of families who are desperately worried about losing the support that in many cases they had to fight ridiculously hard to get. The other important part here is that the bill for helping these
[13:34]kids has been going up and up and up and up and up. So it's not unreasonable to suggest as many people would that it is becoming messier and messier, ineffective and increasingly
[13:45]unaffordable. Enter then Henry Bridget Phillipsson, the education secretary who's got to try and sort out the system in England. >> Yes. And uh it will be published in this
[13:56]white paper which looked more broadly as well at the school system tomorrow. uh she wasn't overeager to divulge details to you uh on the program, but I think you did winkle some out of her in
[14:07]particular that uh well I think the key question that you kept asking her and it will be a key question in terms of how these plans are received by Labor MPs as
[14:16]well was whether children who receive support as it stands would no longer receive that support or whether there would be any changes to that. and she
[14:27]said, "I'm not going to remove effective support." I thought that word effective was quite an important choice of words from her. I don't know if you felt the
[14:36]same. And she also um acknowledged that some children would be reassessed. Now, under the current system, that is meant to happen anyway. Uh but it's not always
[14:46]clear that it does in the way that it is uh sort of meant to happen. >> I think that's absolutely right. So what stood out to me was that she basically in the end said yes, children will have
[14:56]their needs reviewed and their provision reviewed and that has been what is the heart of the difficulty for the government here is by even mentioning that they were going to try and reform
[15:06]special needs education that caused ripples of anxiety which end up in MP's inboxes with worried constituents saying is the government going to take something away from my family? Now the
[15:18]government wants to emphasize in their view this is not the the principle of this is not about removing support but it's a very difficult balance to strike here. They're saying they want to get
[15:29]better support to people earlier on. They don't want parents to be stuck in a sort of neverending expensive legal battle. They want to have more kids getting better support in mainstream
[15:39]schools. But the practicalities of making that happen are very difficult. They're looking to move towards a new system from 2029.
[15:49]So this is a long period of changes and a complicated system. It's not something that's going to happen overnight. But there might be political trouble on it. you know, there really might be
[16:00]political trouble even though ministers have been trying very hard to bring back bentures into these conversations before the proposals, you know, finally emerge into the light of day tomorrow
[16:10]>> because it's 20% of children receive some kind of support for special educational needs >> or disabilities. And one of the things
[16:19]that happens in a child's life is that the government changes several times. And therefore, if you're in the family that is working hard with the authorities to get this sorted out, if a
[16:31]big policy change is even discussed on the horizon, you think, "Ah, that's exactly when my child's going to be 14." So, it becomes a giant political issue,
[16:41]much as of course spending on adults who need have welfare needs. It's part of the bigger argument. How much money does the country not have? And every time [clears throat] Labour tries to get its
[16:51]backbenchers to spend less of the money that we do not have, the backbenches don't like it. >> That's right. And there are elements of this plan where you can think already. I [clears throat] wonder if backbenches
[17:02]are going to put up with that. Will backbentures, for example, be on board with the notion that kids will be reassessed when they go from primary to secondary school? That is a moment for
[17:12]many families. It's like peak stress of a kid moving from one setting to another. Will they be on board with that? don't know how is an individual MP
[17:22]going to explain these changes to people who are already worried by the very notion of change coming down the track. We should also just say these are about changes in England only.
[17:32]>> But if you look around the UK, you know, the same pattern of messy system, stressed parents, schools feeling the pressure is there in the other parts of the UK too. Yeah, because I was going to
[17:43]say we have a devolved system of education, but if there was one home nation that had aced this with happy parents, happy children, happy teachers, happy government, we could just copy it in the other home nation.
[17:55]>> Well, that's right. And Wales, interestingly, did a big reform of this. They call it ALN, alternative learning needs a few years ago and they made some big changes, but that hasn't been universally welcomed either. So the problems are familiar in the different
[18:06]parts of the UK even though the approaches are a bit different in each because the education systems are a bit different in each and as you say they're they're they're devolved. Henry, how vulnerable do you think the government
[18:17]is to their backbenches kicking off on this issue? >> Pretty vulnerable. I mean I guess the the way of framing it slightly reductive but it's the question that's being asked at the top of government is is this the
[18:28]new welfare? >> Yeah. Are the government at risk of having to back down as they were a year or so ago now on uh changes to welfare?
[18:40]And I think there are some pretty key differences in how they've approached it. The welfare proposals were, though the government claimed otherwise, perceived by Labor MPs as a way of
[18:51]saving a certain amount of money quickly in order to get them scored by the Office for Budget Responsibility for an oncoming spring statement. That is not
[19:02]what's happening here. Certainly not the way that the government is framing it. The leadin is much longer. There is much more sort of reassurance uh being given to Labour MPs. All that being said, you
[19:14]do come back to the fundamental point that you raised, Laura, which is that even if the government approaches this as sensitively as it is trying to, there
[19:24]will inevitably be concerned parents in the inboxes of Labour MPs. And there is just a kind of question of
[19:33]how Labour MPs then respond and how they then act towards Bridget Phillips, which I think is kind of unknowable until they start getting those emails as they surely will probably from tomorrow.
[19:44]>> And there's just going to be a massive communication job for the government here if they want to get these proposals through. You know, that's one of the classic things. It's a big argument. They want to make it. They don't want to make people anxious. They want the system to be better. They've taken a
[19:56]long time to come up with these proposals and they would take a long time to implement, but it is something that is going to be a big and possibly angry political conversation, not at
[20:07]least because the opposition parties are not on board with all of it. >> Yeah. >> And just with respect to newscasters who this is their life. >> Yeah, it's huge. >> I I want to say that you you just said typically a fascinating thing, Henry,
[20:18]which is is this going to be the new welfare? I just think in a way everything's a new welfare because we were talking about the defense spending more money that we don't have being
[20:29]promised earlier than we the money we didn't have before we were going to be spending and I just think in a way that's almost like everything's the new welfare. >> Yeah. And it's but it's the product of
[20:39]two things that don't sit happily together is you have a government that is not popular and a government where budgets are going up and they are
[20:48]spending more money but things just as they have for families around the country have got much more expensive. So, we promised to also talk about older
[20:59]young people, students, and under a change in the loans system >> introduced when the Conservatives led a coalition government, students on plan
[21:09]two funding can find that even though they try and pay the loan off, they owe more after making payments. And it's been covered more and more, and you described it as rising up the political
[21:19]escalator. Uh, and so Kemmy Benedo has ridden into the Sunday Telegraph with an article, which is why I mentioned the fact that the Conservatives were there
[21:30]with the first change. And now Chem Bay's implying she wants to see the system changed back. >> That's right. So plan two loans are loans that were given out between 2012 and 2023.
[21:41]And essentially as well as uh just the fact that interest racks up, the concern is that basically as I said one of our viewers feels like the government's been acting like lone sharks here because the
[21:51]rates of interest are seen by many people to be punishingly high and in the recent budget the chancellor froze some of the thresholds too in coming in future years. So there's a sense that
[22:03]this issue of student debt is becoming more and more fractious and I think this is getting really difficult for the government actually and the kind of oh well the Tories were in charge when it
[22:15]began I think is becoming a sort of politically weaker argument just because of the passage of time. enter then the Conservatives seeing giant big political opportunity here and [snorts] they came up with a new plan on it this morning to
[22:26]cut the interest rates. But in order to do that, to get the money for it, they would get rid of a 100,000 university places. This was how Laura Ch justified that choice, the shadow education
[22:36]secretary this morning. We're going to stop the government funding deadend university courses because we know >> which courses are dead endour because we know the IFS says that for 30% of young
[22:47]people going to university it has negative returns for them. That is not okay. It's bad for them and it's also bad for the public because we spend about 8 billion pounds a year funding these courses.
[22:58]>> But which courses would you see come to an end then? >> So what we would do is we take up about 100,000 of those. We would do it on the base of it there is a lot of people but we're spending the money on alleviating
[23:10]the debt issue for lots of people out there and also increasing apprenticeships. So there's a real choice where it comes to 18 whether you go to university you have a brilliant apprenticeship or you go out to work. It's interesting isn't it? So this is a
[23:22]clear political choice. She went on to say okay well some creative arts courses would be the ones in the firing line but it's a clear political divide here. You've got the Tories saying basically let's get rid of some university courses
[23:33]in order to make it more reasonable, more affordable for people who do go and it's a big divide between Labor and the Conservatives. >> Yeah. I I think it's fascinating. I was so pleased to hear you ask the question,
[23:44]what courses would you then take out? Yeah. You know, sort of in the eye of the beholder because, you know, obviously it's very useful to the country to do electrical engineering. Uh
[23:55]and but it's also very important for many of us to to even live with the news cycle to see a great movie or read a great book. So we do actually want people to be able to spell and write.
[24:07]>> And whose choice is it? Is it for government to tell us what to study or not to study? Now yeah, if the taxpayer is contributing towards that cost, well
[24:17]then maybe it is. But actually, doesn't that then move into sort of personal freedom and and personal choices? A really interesting political area. >> Henry, to Laura's point, how surprised
[24:26]have you been as a Westminster watcher, as we like to call Westminster watchers, [laughter] uh to see this issue, which has been hiding in plain sight really, except for the millions of people who are paying
[24:37]it, uh to see student loans rise up the um agenda. >> Well, I think it's fascinating because I think it is quite clearly a generational
[24:46]effect. We now have a non-negligible number of MPs as well, dare I say it, as journalists who are on these plan two
[24:56]loans and are aware in a way that is much more real than um some numbers on a treasury budget document of what these
[25:06]plan two loans look like in practice. So I do think it is a sort of generational thing of having people of influence in Westminster who have lived uh you know
[25:17]10 to 14 years of these loans. Uh so I think that's really interesting. I I think I completely agree with Laura that this is becoming a problem for the government. Um I think they are going to have to have an answer on this. I mean
[25:29]Bridgetson said and it's a completely fair point. uh this is a system that was brought in by the conservatives and in some ways um you know altered by the conservatives over more recent years too
[25:40]but actually you know the the kinds of people who they need to appeal to here and I think by the way there is almost no labor coalition for victory at the next general election which doesn't involve a lot of people on plan two
[25:52]loans voting Labor they are not considering voting conservative instead in large numbers if you look at the polls they're considering voting green so you know Bridget Phillips is saying
[26:02]to them, "Well, the Conservatives brought these in." And I think a lot of those people on these loans will think, "Yeah, sure." But what is the Labor government going to do about it? >> But that's all for this Sunday's
[26:13]newscast. Shall we say goodbye? >> Goodbye. >> Goodbye.