Keir Starmer has been challenged at PMQs over the controversial cut to winter fuel payments in a tense exchange with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.
The PM defended the decision in the Commons after last week’s local election bruising and Labour MPs urging the government to change course. Mr Starmer said the winter fuel cut was needed to “stabilise the economy” after 14 years of Tory chaos and a £22billion black hole left behind.
Some 45 Labour MPs from Red Wall constituencies have also urged the Prime Minister to “act now” to win back voters in the North and Midlands in the wake of Reform’s surge in the local elections. Cuts to disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners have been blamed by spooked Labour MPs for voter unrest.
Following his head-to-head with Ms Badenoch, Mr Starmer faces MPs from across political parties. It’s likely he could face some tough questions from his own MPs after a miserable set of local election results.
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The PM is confronted about poverty levels in the UK, with our nation receiving a rating of being “ninth most unequal” out of developed nations.
He is asked to commit to reversing cuts to Personal Independence Payments benefits, winter fuel allowance cuts and the Tories’ two-child benefit limit. And he faced calls to set “clear poverty reduction targets”.
Mr Starmer said he is very proud the last Labour government reduced poverty and said his government will continue to do that.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey takes aim at Donald Trump – but receives groans in the chamber after an odd attack line.
He urges Keir Starmer to tell the US Presdient that if he picks a fight with “James Bond, Bridget Jones and Paddinton Bear, he will lose.”
The PM said Sir Ed should listen to the “sectors that he thinks he’s championing”, arguing that they don’t want the government to abandon good relations with the US, especially amid negotiations for a US-UK trade deal.
The PM attacks Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch over their attacks on the UK-India trade deal, calling it “incoherent nonsense”.
He says the deal is “a benefit for working people” after they claimed British workers could be undercut by the deal. Opposition parties tried to say Indian workers on short-term visas have been given an exemption from paying national insurance contributions for three years in the UK.
But Labour has insisted they are wrong, and the deal was getting rid of duplication of tax paying in both directions. They also said the measure is already a feature of dozens of existing trade deals with other countries.
Mr Starmer said if Ms Badenoch and Mr Farage are “seriously suggesting that they’re going to tear up agreements with 50 other countries”, they should get up and say so.
After a back and forth on energy bills, Ms Badenoch next goes on climate issues. She claims “jobs are disappearing” and calls for more jobs in the gas and oil sector.
Keir Starmer says Ms Badenoch is not a “climate denier” but a “climate defeatist” and won’t have faith that clean energy is “good for the economy, good for business and good for jobs”.
Kemi Badenoch goes in strong and asks Keir Starmer whether he’ll admit he was “wrong to remove the winter fuel payments from millions of pensioners”.
The PM responds and says he was forced to take the decision to deal with the £22billion black hole in the public finances left behing by the Tories. He said the PM is committed to the pensions triple lock.
Ms Badenoch says pensioners are “poorer and colder” because of his decisions – saying the Tories would not “balance the books on the back of pensioners”.
The PM opens PMQs by looking ahead to tomorrow’s 80th VE Day anniversary.
He said it is a “a day tor emember our greatest generation” and the victory over “tyranny and evil” of WWII.
Keir Starmer is likely to be asked about growing tensions between India and Pakistan after India fired missiles into Pakistani-controlled territory in several locations overnight.
Dozens of civilians have been killed and injured after India fired missiles, while Pakistani forces are reported to have shelled Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said this morning that the UK is reading to “support” the two countries to de-escalate tensions He told the BBC the situation in Kashmir was “hugely worrying”, adding: “Our message would be that we are a friend, a partner to both countries.
“We stand ready to support both countries. Both have a huge interest in regional stability, in dialogue, in de-escalation and anything we can do to support that, we are here and willing to do.”
New YouGov data suggests Labour are polling at their lowest level since the era of Jeremy Corbyn.
The latest voting intention figures show Reform on 29%, with Labour lagging behind on 22% and the Conservatives on 17%. According to YouGov, this is the lowest the party has polled since October 2019 under Mr Corbyn, as Mr Farage’s party continue to out-poll the Government. The Conservatives were last at 17% in June 2019, in the aftermath of the European Parliament elections, the polling firm said.
A Cabinet minister has said that “you can’t do everything at the same time” as Labour came under pressure to reverse its fortunes after Reform UK’s success in the local elections.
Jonathan Reynolds has said ministers “want to go faster” on implementing changes after a group of MPs across former Labour heartlands said Keir Starmer has to “break the disconnect” between Labour and the Red Wall. The Business Secretary told Good Morning Britain that he understands “where people are coming from” and has heard concerns from his own constituents.
Mr Reynolds said: “You’ve got to be clear, sometimes you can’t do everything at the same time, sometimes there are difficult decisions, and means-testing winter fuel payments to the people who need it most, making sure every pensioner is better-off by having the triple lock in place, I think is the right decision between those two key policy areas.”
Kemi Badenoch could attack the PM on the details of the UK-India trade deal, which was announced yesterday.
The former Business Secretary and her party have claimed the deal will undercut British workers and said she refused a similar deal when she was in power. Labour has fiercely rejected the “absolutely false” criticism and said the Tories were “confused”.
Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said this morning: “There is no situation where I would ever tolerate British workers being undercut through any trade agreement we would sign. That is not part of this deal.
“What the Conservatives are confused about, and Reform as well, is a situation where a business in India seconds someone for a short period of time to the UK, or a UK business seconds a worker to India for a short period of time, where you don’t pay in simultaneously now to both social security systems.”
Keir Starmer will today face MPs at Prime Minister’s Questions for the first time since suffering a miserable set of results at the local elections last week.
The Prime Minister has been under pressure to rethink his direction amid growing Labour unrest over the party’s strategy. Some 45 Labour MPs from Red Wall constituencies urged him to “act now” to win back voters in the North and Midlands in the wake of Reform’s surge in the local elections.
Cuts to disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners have been blamed by spooked Labour MPs for voter unrest. The group said it was “not weak” to listen to concerns on winter fuel cuts and warned that Mr Starmer’s response that he would “go further and faster” in delivering his plans had “fallen on deaf ears”.
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