This session was far bigger than Kemi Badenoch and the six scripted questions her LOTO title permits her. The Conservative leader is still paying the price for a series of underpowered performances since seizing the reins of her party. Those tuning into prime minister’s questions today therefore, came not for Badenoch’s weekly tirade — but to assess the political contours of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) after the government’s controversial welfare announcement yesterday.
Already, there have been signs of rebellion on the Labour benches — with critical sentiment emanating beyond the usual suspects in the Socialist Campaign Group of left-wing MPs.
Today, as is a common occurrence at PMQs and a natural consequence of Keir Starmer‘s parliamentary supremacy, the order paper was dominated by Labour representatives. Of the fourteen parliamentarians selected to ask questions by the weekly ballot, ten were Labour politicians. (The Conservatives were afforded two). PMQs then, promised to provide at least some partial answers as the PLP pieces itself together — either in support or opposition to the government’s welfare reforms.
Would Labour MPs issue criticisms, cautiously call for additional clarity or offer their complete support? Would their silence be telling?
But first: Badenoch. The Conservative Party, its recent interventions suggest, largely supports the reforms that work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced yesterday. When it comes to PMQs, there is — in a counter-intuitive sense — a political opportunity in agreeing with the government on such an issue, as the ministerial line vies with the criticisms of backbench MPs.
Badenoch could have used her six questions to relentlessly pressure Starmer, goading the government in a bid to expand the political distance between the Labour front and backbenches. The very sight of Starmer and Badenoch in ostensible agreement on welfare would have sent quivers running along the Labour Party’s collective spine.
But Badenoch opted in instead to prepare the ground for the Conservative Party’s response to the spring statement on 26 March. According to the Tory leader, the due name “spring statement” is belied by the severity of the economic damage Starmer has already wrought. She repeatedly referred to Rachel Reeves’s forthcoming fiscal statement, in which the chancellor will unveil a host of economic forecasts, as an “emergency budget”.
The Conservative leader tends to keep her first question short and snappish. This afternoon was no different as she inquired of the PM: “The chancellor claimed that her [autumn] budget was a once in a parliament reset. So why are we having an emergency budget next week?”
The parliamentary to-and-fro proceeded predictably from this point. Starmer referenced the £20 billion “black hole” he claims the Conservatives left in the public finances. Badenoch accused Reeves of torching business confidence, and later called on the government to exempt hospices, pharmacies and care providers from the employer national insurance hike.
Starmer was at his strongest when he delivered his PMQs peroration. “I think she now calls herself a Conservative realist, well I am realistic about the Conservatives”, he declared in reference to Badenoch’s recent foreign policy speech.
“The reality is they left open borders… they trashed the economy… the NHS was left on its knees and they hollowed out the armed forces…”
The prime minister’s answer to Badenoch’s sixth and final question was a signal for interested politicos to heighten their focus.
Colum Eastwood, the first backbencher to address the House after the frontbench exchange, is not a Labour MP. But he sits on the government backbenches as a representative of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), Labour’s sister party in Northern Ireland.
Eastwood’s intervention was stinging — and no doubt reflected a criticism shared by many in the Labour family. He described the case of a disabled constituent whose receipt of the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) allowance will be halted under the government’s reforms. Eastwood told the House: “Under the Tory welfare system we were able to get that lady on PIP. Under the prime minister’s new proposed system she will get zero, nothing.
“And after 14 years of the Tory government and many of us wanted to see the back of them, can the prime minister answer one question: what was the point if Labour are going to do this?”
Starmer struggled with the serious, emotionally heavy nature of the question. His answer would not have satisfied the former SDLP leader. “We are proceeding on three principles that if you can work you should work, if you need helping to work the state should help you not hinder you, and if you can never work you must be supported not protected”, Starmer responded.
“They are the right principles but we can’t leave the current system as it is.”
Reeves and Angela Rayner, the PM’s frontbench outriders this afternoon, nodded in agreement. But the Labour cheer was isolated and brief — a potential sign that many MPs are not yet ready to row enthusiastically behind the government.
Some questions later, Starmer was blessed by an unforeseen reprieve as Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, delivered his intervention. Since July last year, Leishman has acquired a reputation as one of Labour’s most outspoken — and Starmer-critical — backbenchers.
In a post to X earlier this week, Leishman warned the government: “The idea that more austerity is needed to counter the problems created by austerity the first time round is absolute madness.
“Reject all cuts, tax the richest and tackle the inequalities that are destroying our country.”
But speaking in the commons today, he asked about the workers facing redundancy from the Grangemouth industrial site. He opened his question by welcoming the government’s attempts to secure a future for the site with a £200 million investment. Starmer was able to respond to Leishman in the affirmative on this “very, very important issue”.
The exchange is a signal that the Labour Party has yet to succumb to open rebellion. Of all the questions asked by government MPs today, the vast majority were supportive. As we have come to expect, there were the usual set of planted questions that allowed Starmer to direct his fire at the parties stationed opposite, notably the Conservatives and the SNP.
Interestingly, representatives from both the Reform UK and Green parties also caught the speaker’s eye today — which saw Starmer challenged on both his insurgent right and progressive flanks.
Carla Denyer, co-leader of the Greens, was first up. She told the PM: “We have a deeply unfair, unequal economic system where vast numbers of people are struggling yet billionaires are getting richer and richer.
“Does the prime minister really think that the way to tackle this is to put the onus onto older people, children and now sick and disabled people rather than on the shoulders of the super rich with a wealth tax, those people who could most easily afford to pay?”
Starmer lent tentatively into his government’s progressive credentials before issuing a specific swipe at the Greens’ expense. He responded: “We do have a proportional tax system and we have raised taxon the wealthiest under this government. Her advice would count for a bit more if their manifesto hadn’t been a recipe for £80 billion of extra borrowing.”
Then it was the turn of Lee Anderson, the Reform chief whip, whose authority was recently repudiated by 20 per cent of his parliamentary party (Rupert Lowe). “I come to this chamber to ask sensible questions”, Anderson began.
The synchronous laughter of Labour MPs suggests the party is still largely on the same page when it comes to fighting Reform. With party leader Nigel Farage not in his place, Anderson added: “If we became net zero tomorrow, by how much would we reduce the Earth’s temperature by?”
After describing net zero as a “huge opportunity”, Starmer reflected on Reform’s recent travails. The party, he said, “would have better ideas if they stopped fawning over Putin.
“And I understand the member for Claton [Farage] wants to be prime minister. He can’t even lead a party that fits in the back of a taxi!”
But the last, most damning word was granted to Diane Abbott, the veteran Labour MP and mother of the House. Addressing the commons to the prime minister’s right (in a strict geographical sense), she said the government’s welfare reforms are “not about morality” — but “about the Treasury’s wish to balance the country’s books on the backs of the most vulnerable and poor people in this society.”
The prime minister was courteous initially, paying “tribute” to Abbott’s “passionate” advocacy. But Starmer insisted it was a “moral issue” that one-in-eight young people were not in employment, education or training.
He said that he was “not going to turn away from that” and added that he was “shocked that a million people, young people, are in that position, and I’m not prepared to shrug my shoulders and walk past it”.
Labour unity, despite Abbott’s polemic, is holding.
All else being equal, prime minister’s questions today painted the picture of a party in reasonably strong health. The usual sops and loyal recitation of planted questions presented the PM with opportunities to bruise his opponents.
But all else is not equal. After the welfare announcement yesterday, splinters in the PLP are beginning to show. Abbott, of course, can be filed in the draw marked “usual suspects” — she is not one the government whips will be seeking to woo in the coming weeks. Richard Burgon, another Socialist Campaign Group MP who recently had the Labour whip restored, can be considered with this same categorisation. In a post to X after PMQs today, he warned Starmer that his government could face the “mother of all rebellions” over its welfare reforms.
As things currently stand, a MOAR is what Labour’s likely rebels will need to exact considerable concessions from ministers. Starmer’s towering majority shields him from the prospect of a commons defeat.
It is also worth noting the strengths Starmer showed in the session today. The prime minister coped adeptly with the pressure applied by Badenoch, Reform and the Greens. The Conservative leader’s self-inflicted struggles — and her PMQs woes in particular — are sweet succour for an otherwise pressured prime minister.
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Keir Starmer calls sickness benefits bill ‘devastating’ as he defends reforms
Lunchtime soundbite
‘It’s clear Trump is being played by Putin — stringing him along and currying favour even as his savage war machine continues to push deeper into Ukraine.
‘Now is the time for the UK and our allies in Europe and the Commonwealth to redouble our efforts to support Ukraine’s defence and achieve a lasting peace.’
— Responding to Vladimir Putin’s phone call with Donald Trump, Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesperson Calum Miller commented as above.
Now try this…
‘Keir Starmer pulled the pin on steep welfare cuts. Now for the hard part’
MPs are digesting a sweeping social security shake-up that marks arguably the biggest test of the British prime minister’s authority yet, Politico’s Dan Bloomand Annabelle Dickson write.
‘Up to 1.2m disabled people will lose thousands in UK welfare overhaul, experts warn’
Via The Guardian.
‘Kemi Badenoch attacked for “killing growth” after axeing Tory net-zero pledge’
CBI warns that “now is not the time to step back” from green growth opportunities, the i reports. (Paywall)
On this day in 2024:
Conservative peer claims Rwanda is ‘perfectly safe’ if you don’t oppose the government
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Source: Politics