Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Government 2025 at The IfG: Darren Jones Keynote Speech

In a speech at the IfG this week, Darren Jones MP, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, insisted that “we are long overdue a reckoning with government spending and a realistic appraisal of how we're using taxpayers' money."
 
So what is Jones planning? Where might the spending cuts fall? How can AI – the so-called Chat HMTGPT – help deliver Whitehall savings? And what will Jones be doing to embed the government’s mission-led approach into the spending review?
 
After his speech, Darren Jones was in conversation with Hannah White.
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The first Labour government in 14 years is facing a daunting to-do list and complex challenges at every turn. Public services are under strain. The civil service is under pressure. And ministers must deliver the government’s missions and milestones. But could Keir Starmer’s plan to “rewire the British state” – through using AI and creating a “start-up” culture – turn these challenges into opportunities?
So where is government working well and what is it doing badly? What can be done to make No10, the Treasury and the rest of government function more effectively? What can Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves do to achieve faster economic growth? What will Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives and the other opposition parties do to hold the government to account? How might Donald Trump shape British politics – and how could the UK’s relations with the EU change in the years ahead?
Get behind the scenes in Westminster, Whitehall and beyond on the weekly podcast from Britain’s leading governmental think tank, where we analyse the latest events in politics and explain what they mean. Every week on Inside Briefing, IfG director Hannah White and the team welcomes special guests for a thought-provoking conversation on what makes government work – and how to fix it when it doesn’t.