[0:00]Could Prince Britandrew be forced to give up his 30bedroom [music] mansion known as Royal Lodge? It comes after the revelation that he pays a token amount of rent every year in [music] return for
[0:10]having paid millions of pounds to refurbish it when he first moved in. We will discuss what's going on in this latest episode of the BBC's daily [music] news podcast, Newscast. Hello, it's Adam in the newscast studio
[0:23]and shortly I'll be joined by my colleagues who spent hours watching Boris Johnson, the former prime minister at the co inquiry where he was asked questions about his decision-making about children and young people and
[0:34]schools during the pandemic. But first of all, the questions have continued for Prince Andrew today as recording this episode of Newscast on Tuesday evening. And a lot of them are around his living
[0:45]arrangements and where he lives, the Royal Lodge, the 30-bedroom mansion in Windsor Great Park because some details have emerged of the lease that he has
[0:55]for that property. Also continuing the political criticism which is taking lots of different forms and coming from new places all the time. The person who's been watching it all unfold throughout
[1:07]Tuesday is our politics and investigations correspondent Joe Pike. and I spoke to him in the other studio a little bit earlier on. Well, let's speak now to Joe Pike, who's our politics and investigations correspondent. Hello, Joe.
[1:18]>> Hello, Adam. >> You've actually been covering this all weekend, haven't you? >> I have. Yes, a lot of it. Um, so where have we got to today? Where should we start? I think we probably should start
[1:26]with Royal Lodge. Uh this revelation uh from the Times newspaper, which actually was in some um government documents a couple of decades ago, but is still
[1:37]significant that Prince Andrew is living in Royal Lodge, this 30 room grade two-listed mansion um in Windsor Great
[1:48]Park for Peppercorn rent. So effectively paying nothing for it. that has prompted quite a significant political reaction. But we should probably point out he he
[1:59]did pay up front 7.5 million pounds to refurbish this uh this property. It's in the midst of Windsor Great Park. It has the Royal Chapel in its grounds. There
[2:10]are always security concerns about leasing it to to somebody else because it's it's it's listed. You couldn't exactly turn it into a hotel. And certainly a couple of decades ago, the
[2:21]National Audit Office looked into this arrangement, a lease between uh the then Duke of York uh Prince Andrew and the
[2:30]Crown Estate, which is a sort of big uh national property company looking after the sovereign's public wealth. And the national audit office said that actually
[2:40]this arrangement was value for money and that uh effectively the public purse got its money's worth from the fact that that Prince Andrew had spent many
[2:50]millions refurbishing it and of course he pays for its upkeep very regularly too. >> So the idea being that paying for it to be refurbished and a bit on top was kind of in lie of I don't know 50 years worth
[3:02]of rent. >> Exactly. and it's very difficult to uh rent it out. And certainly the lease does say uh for example that he needs to ensure the exterior stonework is in a good condition every 5 years. He needs
[3:13]to paint the interior every seven years. He needs to allow his landlords to inspect it, making sure he's keeping up the lease. Unclear whether they have been inspecting it. Also interesting,
[3:23]Adam, no helicopters and no gambling on the premises. >> Well, I mean, we all have conditions in our leases for our properties, [laughter] don't we? Uh I'm not sure if there's a helicopter clause in in mine.
[3:34]Um and I suppose what is uh eye opening about this is even though some of this information or maybe all of it in various forms was in the public domain, what was kind of in the public domain in people's minds was that he was paying
[3:45]about £200,000 a year of rent. >> Yeah. And I suppose I I suppose if you take a step back, we thought this man had lost his royal role. He was no longer a working royal. He's not allowed
[3:56]to use uh his titles. And yet he is living in this pretty uh palatial home seemingly sort of at the
[4:06]taxpayers expense. As I've explained, it's not quite as simple as that. But certainly the lifestyle he is currently being allowed to have on a property that
[4:17]is owned effectively by all of us has raised a lot of eyebrows and led to I think quite a significant shift in the political reaction because normally
[4:28]politicians don't uh get involved at all in royal matters but in recent days Adam we've seen a bit of a shift there. >> Oh yeah and Rachel Reeves the chancellor has just been talking at an investment
[4:39]summit hasn't she? She has and she spoke to >> obviously not about this but she was asked about this. >> Yeah. She she uh spoke to one of our colleagues from BBC Midlands today and I
[4:49]think what was not surprising is that she followed what other government ministers have done in recent days which is to effectively swerve the issue. She certainly did not want to comment on the
[5:00]sort of royal lodge matter saying she's not seen the details. I can't comment on them. I just don't know the details. But she was asked about uh Prince Andrew in
[5:10]the context of Virginia Guprey's book. Virginia Duprey being the most prominent of Jeffrey Epstein's accusers who ended her own life in April of this year and
[5:20]who uh today Tuesday uh her memoir uh was published some new information in that. And Rachel Reed said I think that the most striking line
[5:30]she said Prince Andrew shouldn't have been associated with a convicted pedophile. Now that may not be surprising that that's her view, Adam.
[5:40]Uh, however, it is a step away from what other government ministers have been doing uh in recent days, which is to completely swerve the issue and say all of this is a matter for Buckingham
[5:52]Palace. And here is how Rachel Reeves said that >> he shouldn't have been associated with a convicted um uh pedophile. And I think the new revelations in this book uh you
[6:02]know make for very sober um uh reading. And I um I I'm sure that um you know everybody will reflect on that and and form their own judgment. >> And then let's get some other reaction.
[6:12]Here is Robert Genrich uh using some quite strong language on BBC Breakfast. >> He has behaved disgracefully. He's embarrassed the royal family time and
[6:22]again. He should really now leave public life forever. stop having any subsidy from the taxpayer whatsoever and go and
[6:33]lead an entirely private life. The public are sick of Prince Andrew. >> Okay, Joe, what's your take on that? I don't mean he used strong language like swearing, but strong language in terms of his opinion about what should happen. >> What jumped out at me, Adam? Behave
[6:45]disgracefully, embarrass the royal family. The public are sick of him. And also that that that push it's not quite clear what he means by it for Prince Andrew to stop having any subsidy from
[6:56]the taxpayer. Does he mean move out of royal lodge? It is it is unclear. But the Conservative party as their name would suggest don't normally uh speak
[7:07]about the royal family. Certainly not criticize a member of it. That is absolutely not what Robert Gener is doing today. Although I've spoken to some of Kemmy Benox see and they're very
[7:17]clear that the party's position is that this is a matter for the royal family. Added to that a couple of days ago the S&P's leader in Westminster, Steven Flynn, uh called for uh Prince Andrew's
[7:29]titles, his his duke to be legally removed. He may have sort of set them aside and agreed last Friday he won't use them, but they are given to him and
[7:39]exist in law and therefore it would require law, although not much law to uh officially remove them. The S&P calling from that and also very strong language from the Liberal Democrats too. This is
[7:50]a statement rather than a clip, but their cabinet office uh spokesperson has said Prince Andrew has failed our king and royal family and betrayed the values
[8:00]of the British people. Uh the longer this whole saga goes on, the more his presence in public life is an insult and increasingly an embarrassment. And here's the key thing about Royal Lodge.
[8:12]He should show some contrition by returning every penny of rent that he's not paid while disgracing his office. I'm not quite sure what they're calling for there, Adam. Are they calling for
[8:21]sort of back rent for the last >> How do you return something you've not paid? >> Exactly. That seems like something that's not going to happen. But interesting, you've got two opposition politicians, one the party of the Lib
[8:33]Dems and then a prominent conservative Robert Denrich calling for a shift in the Royal Lodge situation. I'm not sure this moves us on from the situation we were in yesterday where it would require
[8:43]quite a big heave by opponents of Prince Andrew to force the government into doing something. I agree. I think all of this as ever comes down to ultimately
[8:54]the uh the king deciding Buckingham Palace deciding something needs to to happen and uh that being agreed with the with the prime minister. Of course, we never hear about those private
[9:05]conversations between prime ministers and monarchs. But it it seems certainly unlikely the government will do anything. That doesn't though mean there isn't something really striking and
[9:16]unusual about suddenly over a matter of days prominent opposition politicians being vocally strikingly critical of a
[9:26]member of the royal family. That is that is pretty new. Um especially I think with the Lib Dems when you consider how positive Ed Davyy the leader of that party is about the king. And I think
[9:37]even if this doesn't change things, it will have been uh heard in uh Buckingham Palace. And of course the question the palace are constantly facing is how do
[9:48]we finally draw a line under this? And certainly they've struggled to do that over a number of years. >> Well, yeah, because every time they draw a line, it turns out there's a new line.
[9:57]>> Absolutely. Absolutely. And also um even though Prince Andrew has lost a lot including his royal position and his
[10:07]patronages and his military titles in law he is still um the Duke of York. He is still uh a prince. uh that could all change and certainly constitutional
[10:18]experts have slightly gone against what uh palace sources seem to be saying that actually it wouldn't be very difficult for parliament to uh to change that to
[10:28]make sort of amendments in law because so much of this is in legislation and legislation from many decades ago. Uh so it could be done quite quickly without
[10:39]much debate because certainly MPs by convention are not really allowed to discuss the royal family in the in the House of Commons. Um there doesn't seem any sign that it's happening yet, but I
[10:49]suppose it it could happen quickly and it depends whether others feel that they are emboldened after these these interventions over the last two or three
[10:58]days. I can totally imagine a either like an old-timer backbencher who's always hated this convention and also doesn't think it's quite as strong a convention as other people do mentioning
[11:08]this at PMQ's tomorrow to get maximum publicity or maybe a new generation MP um who just thinks it's all really old-fashioned. >> Absolutely. I think that is very very possible. I was trying to work out in my
[11:19]head whether whether Ben would want to talk about this as one of her six questions on Wednesday. I think that's probably unlikely. Certainly >> if the Conservative Party official statement is kind of shutting down
[11:30]Robert Jenrich that suggests no. >> Exactly. That that was that was my thought. But you I think you're right that others could voice it. And partly I suppose what this comes down to is that
[11:40]even though partly this is about um royalty and the monarchy, it is also even though Prince Andrew of course has consistently denied all these allegations about victims and survivors.
[11:51]And certainly one thing that government ministers have said and uh other opposition parties have said in recent days is that we need to think about um
[12:02]about survivors and victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Gillen Maxwell. And ultimately I suppose this whole row over Prince Andrew over many years does come back to the question over the company
[12:14]you keep. And even though he has denied wrongdoing, we we do know that two of his close friends for quite a long time are people we now know to be a a prolific convicted
[12:25]pedophile and also a convicted sex trafficker. Also, I think one of the really interesting things um that that has emerged today was Baroness Kennedy, Helena Kennedy, Labour Pier on the Today
[12:37]program at about 20 past 8 floating this idea of of Andrew moving to Switzerland and sort of insinuating that maybe that might be the king's preferred option for this and okay that sounds quite
[12:48]speculative and of course people have said oh in the past royals have gone and lived in other countries when they've proved to be a big problem. But what I think is interesting about that is she I
[12:58]think is quite pi with the king and also she set up the chambers that Kier Starmer was a barristister in. So that reflects a certain kind of stratum of
[13:09]opinion about what should happen to Prince Andrew which I think is fascinating that she sort of put that out there in the open. That is absolutely fascinating. And I suppose the most uh prominent historical example
[13:20]would be the Duke of Windsor uh Edward VII who of course abdicated um so he could be with a woman he loved.
[13:28]Certainly the story um of his life after he was king is pretty sort of sad,
[13:37]depressing, controversial at points, but clearly the monarchy do not want and it's been reported for for quite a long time they do not want Andrew in this
[13:48]mansion royal lodge in in Windsor Great Park. I suppose the danger with with uh him him really being sort of outside the tent is that can cause problems too. Now
[14:00]you're not it would be strange to think that he would uh pursue sort of media interventions like Prince Harry has. But
[14:11]certainly I think there are advantages and maybe this is felt partly uh in royal circles. sort of no evidence of it of keeping somebody like um Prince
[14:21]Andrew close at hand. Partly so you know what he's getting up to, but also um there is an element that the the royal family seem to have great fondness for
[14:31]his his two daughters and uh their continuing role. Joe, thank you very much. >> Thanks, Adam. Now, as promised, we're going back down memory lane because that's what the co inquiry were doing
[14:42]today when they were quizzing Boris Johnson, former prime minister, for several hours for their eighth module of their inquiry, which is all about how government decision-m affected children
[14:53]and young people with a big focus on the decisions in 2020 and 2021 to close schools for quite long periods of time. Two of my ace colleagues have been
[15:03]watching all his hours of testimony and they're here in the newscast studio. Please welcome education editor Bramman Jeff. Hi Bramman. >> Hello. >> And Ben Shu from BBC Verify. Hello. >> Hello Adam.
[15:13]>> Um first of all before we we dig into the evidence just what how did it feel for you guys watching it? Because >> I used to love talking about COVID and government policy and the ins and outs
[15:25]of it. I'm not sure I love it quite so much now. >> Do you know I lived and breathed it at the time because I was on the phone or on people's doorsteps or in schools and colleges the whole time. So, it was an
[15:37]extraordinary day to see it now being unpicked. And I think there's a real generational piece here. When you talk
[15:45]to anyone who who's under 25, 26, it came at such a big time in their life. >> Absolutely massive points of transition,
[15:54]not just in education, but in their social development, their friendships, and it still really matters. >> Yeah. And Ben, it's it's interesting going from the days where we knew all
[16:06]the decisions and the dates and the documents that were floating around almost like the backs of our hands and now it feels like ancient history. >> Yeah. Well, I think a lot of us have tried to blot out that period because it
[16:16]was so traumatic in many ways. I mean, my biggest memory today watching the evidence was actually homeschooling in that period in March and April in 2020.
[16:25]And it was I had two primary school age children um just trying to find the laptops trying to navigate the teaching aids. It was very very stressful and obviously trying to do your job at the
[16:36]same time. So very big consequences of those decisions made at that time and I lived through it and I felt it and you know we were relatively privileged because we had a laptop two laptops knocking about the house. Imagine if you
[16:47]didn't imagine trying to do it on a phone or without broadband. I mean it was >> it was a very very tough time. And Braman, just in terms of the processology, this is module eight of
[16:57]the CO inquiry and its focuses entirely on the stuff we've just been talking about there. >> That's exactly it. It focuses on what happened to anyone who was under 18 at
[17:06]the time. So, children from the smallest babies to to young adults effectively. And it concludes its evidence uh at the end of this week. Um this was probably
[17:18]Boris Johnson's last appearance at the inquiry, so very significant. He was there today, >> which is his second overall. >> His second overall. Um, and we may not
[17:28]get the report from this module until some way through next year because they're publishing them bit by bit. >> Um, lots to discuss. Let's listen to an early bit of Boris Johnson's evidence
[17:39]where he's being asked by the KC about the initial decision to shut schools in mid-March 2020. School closures were clearly going to be part of the the
[17:51]paniply of things that we might be able to do to to defeat COVID. I I wanted to keep it to the very very last. It was something that I thought was a and I say
[18:01]in my a terrible thing to do and would have awful consequences for for young people particularly those who were u least able to cope. >> Yeah. Ban just give us give us a bit of
[18:13]your take on that what you were saying there. Well, there was this dispute which was arisen out of previous evidence we heard from Gavin Williamson about how much preparation there was and evidence from the permanent secretary at
[18:24]the Department for Education about there not being any contingency plans for schools closing. And it's worth just underlining why this is really important because there was a big impact as we've
[18:35]been discussing about the shutdowns on children. Maybe they should have done it, maybe they shouldn't. But if you were going to do it, you'd want the government to be prepared in some way to make this as uh as as painless as
[18:46]possible. >> But if decision is is quite a sort of I'm not going to say an easy decision, but it's like shut them or not. It's then all the consequences that come from that that you have to then mitigate. >> Exactly. So things like we were talking
[18:57]about laptops, have you got laptops ready? Have you got a plan for vulnerable children? Have you got a plan for children who who need to go to school to eat properly? All these things. But it looks like according to
[19:08]the evidence from Gavin Williamson and the department for education permanent secretary that there had been none of that planning. So Boris Johnson was challenged on this today and he said he didn't really recognize that. He said
[19:18]well they were talking about shutting the schools and as far as I was concerned these they were making plans. So there was a very direct contradiction between what we'd heard from the department education department and what
[19:30]we heard from Boris Johnson today. So we at verify looked at these evidence. I think as as Boris Johnson said he is right that sage the advis scientific
[19:40]advisory council did discuss school closures and it was clearly being discussed within government as a possibility but that's not the same as contingency planning. So they can both
[19:51]be true at the same time. According to the people who were actually in charge operationally of schools, there was no contingency planning. And we heard nothing today to really say that that wasn't true.
[20:02]>> And it was very clear that in as much as they were thinking about it, they were thinking, well, what happens to an individual school if half the teachers are ill and we have to somehow keep the
[20:13]education going for everyone else? There wasn't any large-scale planning for what happened if you closed all the schools for most of the children all at the same time. And in fact, what was surfaced
[20:25]today and they showed some of it at the inquiry was a hasty three pager which was drawn up on the day before it was
[20:34]announced to parents. And in that there were some interesting details. It was clear they understood that if you took free school meals away, they couldn't begin to get food vouchers, for example,
[20:46]to children for a month. There was no mention at all of vulnerable children and how to look after them. >> Although I saw a memo that they flashed up on the screen, there was some bullet points from the Department for Education
[20:56]around that period that spelt out very clearly all the consequences that we then all lived through. And I was like, "Oh, actually, there were some people very aware of where this would lead."
[21:06]That was from March the 17th, 2020. The announcement was made on March the 18th, 2020. We heard in previous evidence um from Gavin Williamson that an email
[21:17]arrived at 8:45 p.m. saying, "Right, okay, we've decided we are going to shut schools." And officials worked through the night to try and pull things together. So for something that's that
[21:29]large scale affecting 9 million children, >> it's not a three pages does not go a long way. >> And not trying to prejudge the outcome of the inquiry, but having read the
[21:41]previous report from the inquiry and watched hours of the the interrogation of other ministers and other subjects, you can see there's two things that the inquiry just keep pushing at and
[21:50]highlighting, which is the sort of the failure of imagination. like you can't if you if you're not prepared, if you're not thinking about the worst, you can't really prepare for the worst. And then also just the the white hole
[22:02]decision-making, who was actually in charge and what sort of assumptions were made about who else might be doing something if the prime minister isn't directly saying right, we're doing this now, plan for this tomorrow. A
[22:12]>> and an extraordinarily massive sort of don't think culture in some ways. So if the message from the center is well this is a remote possibility that a
[22:23]department wouldn't then galvanize itself to think well it might happen so we need to have a plan just in case. M I think it is it is worth making the point that it is still disputed very vigorously about whether it was right or
[22:35]wrong to shut the schools in fact in terms of dealing with the virus and people can have legitimate views on both sides of that but I think >> including Boris Johnson who holds both >> position changed his mind he was very
[22:45]conflicted you could see that but the issue is you should still plan for it if you're going if it's a serious possibility even if you don't want to do it why isn't government why isn't the department for education why isn't
[22:57]downing street getting a plan together say if you do have to do what you don't want to do or you hope you won't have to do to get ready for it. And I think that's where I suspect the uh the inquiry will will find criticism.
[23:08]>> And there's one thing for everyone to hold in mind which is virtually the whole world closed schools in that spring of 2020 >> and before the UK did
[23:17]>> and before the UK did. So a places like Italy could have been a warning signal for the UK, but also it wasn't a decision that looked irrational to many
[23:27]governments in that context at that time. >> And then if we fast forward to the the second school closure decision, which was at the very beginning of January 2021, I mean, the decision-m around that
[23:38]seems well, we know at the time it was very ragged. Schools opened and then closed the next day. I have such a vivid memory of being in a primary school in Warrington at parents really relieved in
[23:49]many ways that their kids could come back and see their friends and their teachers and then sitting in a van outside that same school uh watching the prime minister say actually we've
[23:59]decided we have to close them and we're cancelelling exams again. And we heard today about a key meeting that had happened during that day in which they'd looked at the data around the new
[24:11]variant, the alpha variant. And he said it was that scientific data which had convinced them that although they wanted to open schools, they couldn't. >> But up to that, the conversation in
[24:22]government had been about what level of testing do you have and what kind of staggering of different year groups do you have going back. They weren't talking about, oh, bring them all, bring
[24:32]all the children home again. >> Yeah. Well, I remember being on the other side of it at the school gate, you know, dropping your children off, thinking, we're out of this, you know, thank God, and then being pulled back into this, it was a it was an incredibly
[24:44]tough time. I think that was probably one of the bleakest moments actually that January 2021 given the number the surging number of deaths and that sense of we're going back into this again and
[24:53]the government, it felt to many parents that they just didn't have a grip on what was going on. The fact that you were in and out like that just doesn't breed confidence. >> And I mean, I didn't watch Gavin
[25:03]Williamson's evidence when he was giving it a few days ago, but the the KC was referring to it in the questioning of Boris Johnson today, and she said, "Oh, he sort of suggests that actually the
[25:15]decision to close schools in 2021 wasn't really necessarily about schools. It was more about getting everyone in the population to follow all the rules." And
[25:25]if you wanted to do that, maybe you would say, "We're even shutting the schools. That's why we're shutting everything else. You got to follow we're throwing everything at this." It was almost like part of a I mean, the the inquiry didn't use this this word, but
[25:36]it was almost like a sort of propaganda thing to encourage behavior elsewhere. >> The word messaging was used by Gavin Williamson that that's what he thought it was largely about and that this
[25:45]metaphor had been used um about smashing a Ming vase on the floor just to get the point across and that was the closure of schools. Today, Boris Johnson was pretty
[25:55]emphatic that it wasn't just about that. They were genuinely concerned about the spread of the virus and the virus going back into households and what that would mean. >> And then um Braman, you you alluded to
[26:07]the exams fiasco and I think we can call it a fiasco. Everyone widely calls it that now. In summer 2020 when there was the infamous algorithm that was deciding pupil's grades for them. What did Boris
[26:18]Johnson say about that? So he said that it was a bad decision uh that they should have known sooner. They shouldn't have implemented it and that
[26:29]the public outrage was absolutely huge and he fully fully acknowledged that. What I was really struck by was if you reel back to 2020 at the time, he was
[26:40]calling it a mutant algorithm, suggesting that it somehow had a mind of its own and had gone off and concocted these exam results. And what we've heard over the last couple of weeks is that
[26:52]there were warnings from senior school leaders as earlier as a April saying, look, this doesn't look as though it's going to be terribly fair for a lot of students. Are you really really sure about this? and that there was a
[27:03]doubling down because they wanted to make sure that there wasn't grade inflation. What was read out in the inquiry today was a message from Boris
[27:12]Johnson at the time to Dominic Cummings basically saying um and I'm paraphrasing this. >> No, I'm going to read it. I'm going to read it out because I did I did a um screen grab of it because that's what I
[27:23]like to do when Boris Johnson's WhatsApp messages appear on the big screen. Um, I'll not use the first few words because it involves a swear word, but he's talking about a newspaper reporting this
[27:34]situation which has messed up. Um, quote, "The remnants of my Scottish break. So, I'm back in checkers and in a thoroughly homicidal mood. We need a plan for the Department of Education. We need a permanent secretary, in other
[27:46]words, the most senior civil servant. And we need better ministers. And quite frankly, we need an agenda of reform. We can't go on like this. I'm thinking of going into number 10 and firing people." That's the message. and note the people
[27:57]multiple because some people today have said was that him intending to sack um Gavin Williamson. Um also heavily involved in the exams decisions at the
[28:07]time were was Nick Gibb who was a very very experienced schools minister very concerned about standards and he had been involved in a lot of the nitty-gritty. In the end, neither of the
[28:18]politicians walked the plank. It was the permanent secretary, the most senior civil servant, uh, Jon Jonathan Slater who was made to leave and to fall on his
[28:28]sword to take off some of the heat from the public outcry around this. And also there was an interesting memo on the screen in the room from Helen McNamara the deputy cabinet secretary who's been
[28:40]quite prominent in all of this and she was sort of starting to ask the questions about why the algorithm had gone wrong saying things like oh when when was it decided that grade inflation
[28:51]prevention was the main thing here because if you decided something else you would have gone down a different route. >> I think that's really important. So Boris Johnson in his testimony said well he got quite indignant right at the end
[29:00]saying well you try and devise a way of being fair to all pupils and keeping that angriest moment >> and that is true. It is very very hard to do that given you weren't sitting
[29:10]exams to to to devise a system. The real question is did they privilege not uh stopping grade to stopping grade inflation over fairness
[29:21]>> and why was that decision taken? who took it and you know who was responsible for uh to carry the can for that. They didn't quite get to that for me. He
[29:32]Boris John was apologetic. He said look this he admitted it was a fiasco and obviously they had to completely scrap the system that they devised in very short order. But it seems to me that the
[29:42]really important political point is who had made that decision and why because that was the source of it actually. If they'd gone for the system, the centrally assessed grades first of all,
[29:53]they could have avoided all this, but they chose not to. Someone was saying the most important priority for government is to stop grade inflation. And a lot of people would question whether they had their priorities right. A
[30:04]>> and across the UK, it's worth remembering there are four exams regulators. They all broadly used the same algorithm. Um because Scottish
[30:13]results come out a week earlier. Nicholas Sturgeon had called it pretty quickly and said, "Okay, we're going to U-turn on this. It hasn't worked. It's
[30:23]clearly not fair." >> The Alevel results in England were a week later. And it took days and protests and people pointing out that if
[30:34]you've got a system which even if it's only unfair and and only perhaps is the wrong word for a minority of students for each of their students it's 100% of
[30:45]their future. Yeah. So if you have gone through school getting largely A's and B's or the equivalent and you get to A levels and because the algorithm because you're doing a large subject with with
[30:56]lots of people taking it, you get a D or an E, >> you know, you are not happy. >> Yeah. Um and also that Helen McNamara email, it's quite interesting just seeing the the language that is used for
[31:08]the to towards the prime minister of like you will want to decide to do something like X. Please let us know if you want some options of X, Y, and Zed while we suggest you do X. So, it's just amazing getting the insight into just
[31:20]how these things are done. Um, Braman, um, anything else that that we haven't covered yet? >> I think the the other thing really was around what should happen once they
[31:30]recognize that there've been a huge impact on schools and kids education. Um, what should happen afterwards? There was a lot of discussion about Sir Kevin Collins, an education expert
[31:40]>> who was appointed as recovery zar by Boris Johnson with great fanfare and >> and who wanted to spend 15 billion pounds. He wanted to spend 15 billion pounds. And his grand vision was to make
[31:52]school super attractive by extending the school day and putting in sports, arts, creative subjects, drama, stuff that would get kids back into school, which
[32:04]arguably sitting where we are now, where we know that attendance is still not fully recovered, might have been a smart idea. What Boris Johnson said today was yes, I let him come up with a grand plan
[32:16]and then I had to make difficult decisions about how much we were spending on COVID recovery across the whole of the UK in different parts of the economy and it just felt like 10
[32:26]billion too much. So we gave him five billion for tutoring for which there was a solid evidence base. >> I think it's right interesting that because Boris Johnson said he stood by that decision. He said, "I I don't think
[32:37]it would have been value for money to spend as much as Kevin Collins was recommending." A lot of uh education experts at the time, I remember, were saying, "Actually, this is a bit of a false economy." There's a study by the
[32:49]Institute for Fiscal Studies which suggested at that time that not fully helping these children catch up could cost the British economy in the long
[32:57]term some 350 billion pounds. So if you put the 15 billion catch up in that context, it does look a bit like a false economy not to spend it. Now I think we're still going to have to wait for
[33:09]the evaluations to find out exactly whether the prime minister was right or Kevin Collins was right who still sticks to that view. But I think it is worth putting it in that context. You know, the lifelong damage to people's
[33:20]education and therefore their earning ability needs to be weighed in that. >> And also just think about it politically. There's a parallel universe where they spent the money. schools were completely revolutionized after this
[33:31]dreadful period. And Boris Johnson's legacy was reinventing education from the ashes of this disaster. But instead, his legacy is well the legacy that he has. >> And tutoring did make a difference. It's
[33:42]worth saying that, you know, there is evidence that it did help children catch up with lost learning, but that's really to think about children in a very narrow way, which is all about school and
[33:54]knowledge and getting them through exams rather than thinking about their emotional well-being, their social development, their ability to communicate and and connect with other
[34:03]people. All of which suffered hugely. And we we've seen a spike in mental health referrals for the most serious cases coming out of the COVID. We hear
[34:15]anecdotally about the lack of social skills and social confidence. I >> it's huge and of course that's hard to quantify. So hard to make the case to Treasury. >> Bramman, thank you very much. >> Thank you.
[34:26]>> And Ben, thanks to you too. >> Thank you, Adam. And around this time last week, we were
[35:16]doing an episode of Newscast and we got some breaking news from Washington DC that following a phone call between the two of them, Donald Trump was preparing to meet Vladimir Putin face to face in
[35:27]Hungary to talk about the fate of Ukraine. We now hear from the White House today on Tuesday. There are now no plans for the two men to meet. So, we
[35:38]will keep an eye on whether there's any outcome or consequences from that decision. And that's it for this episode of Newscast. We'll be back with another
[35:46]one very soon. Bye-bye.