Darren Jones

So what the government have got to deal with in the spending review next year is that they've got a squeeze on spending any bait in and then they've got to find the defence funding as well all against the backdrop of an economy that doesn't look like it's it is slightly below forecast now it can also outperform the forecast so it might change but what you're saying is that there's quite a lot of difficulty on the horizon

there's already a lot of baked in spending pressure and you know when i was education secretary the thought of trying to take a couple of percent off the budget largely it's operational budget schools budget there's not much sort of income that you're all expenditure that is you know one-off So and all of that will have already probably been shaved.

So it really is cutting school budgets and which is largely then cutting probably pay or number of people or salary or staff.

So it is really painful cuts.

But nevertheless, they've got big problems.

Yeah, I mean, probably Darren Jones, obviously former senior cabinet minister under Keir Starmer, told a rival podcast, I think it was this morning, that early 2028 now looks like...

There

are other podcasts? There are other...

But the other way of looking at it, Lewis, is that...

And this was basically where Darren Jones was with us yesterday.

They will never have 400 Labour seats again.

They will never... have that kind of majority to actually effect change with.

It is part of a sort of Burnham process, part of a Healey process.

And we are going to be speaking in a moment to a man whose very job was right at the heart of Budget Day, Chief Secretary to the Treasury and later as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister himself, Darren Jones, and find out what he thinks John Healey has to do tomorrow.

This is the story of the one.

As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time.

Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Grainger.com, or just stop by.

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Well, we're joined now by Darren Jones, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Chief Secretary to the then Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

So you know all about the budget process.

Cabinet Office, the NIC was an arms-length body producing really good and important reports, but not directly within government.

And now what actually this government did, so going back two years, what this government did, Darren Jones, who was the Chief Secretary then, Those two pieces together, so you have the strategy function, thinking about what other countries' infrastructure needs, what more strategic changes need to happen to, as you say, drive efficiency, drive that program forward, produce the 10-year infrastructure strategy, pop that alongside the delivery function, but then importantly also pop that alongside the spending function and the money.

which sits in Treasury, and that bit is really important.

That Treasury link is the crucial part of it, is it? For me, well, I'm a long-term

And the minister who couldn't abolish his own department.

The former Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, tells all to a bemused Select Committee.

But first, Ruth, the new Chancellor John Healey's first budget is looming.

He'll deliver it next week and it'll be closely scrutinised as the first concrete evidence of how Andy Burnham's government plans to do things differently.

And I think it was two or three general elections later and a long-running constitutional crisis later, the first Parliament Act was passed and the House of Lords had its wings clipped.

Yeah.

Shall we come back in a minute, Mark, and talk about Darren Jones's appearance before the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, where he told them that he tried several times to abolish his department, Cabinet Office, only to be told by the Civil Service that he couldn't because it was unconstitutional.

A surreal moment on the committee corridor.