Starmer defends Rayner, saying he is ‘proud’ to sit beside working class woman who became deputy PM
Kemi Badenoch asks why Angela Rayner is still in office. There is a crisis for the cabinet. But also for the country. When was government borrowing last this high?
Starmer says Rayner has explained her circumstances in detail. And she asked the court to lift a confidentiality order relating to her son. That was difficult, but she did it to make sure all the information is in the public domain.
But Starmer says he is “proud” to sit beside Rayner, who is building 1.5m homes and has come from a working class background to be deputy PM.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
I also welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has referred herself to the ethics adviser. She has admitted that she underpaid tax. So why is she still in office?
And Starmer said:
[Rayner] has explained her personal circumstances in detail. She’s gone over and above in setting out the details, including yesterday afternoon asking a court to lift the confidentiality order in relation to her own son.
I know from speaking at length with the Deputy Prime Minister, just how difficult that decision was for her and her family, but she did it to ensure that all the information is in the public domain.”
I can be clear, I am very proud to sit alongside a Deputy Prime Minister who is building 1.5 million homes, who is bringing the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights for a generation, and has come from a working class background to be Deputy Prime Minister.
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Updated at 07.19 EDT
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Jess Asato (Lab) asks about the government’s childcare announcement on Monday.
Starmer says he was very proud to unveil this. This measure will ensure every child gets a fair start at school, he says.
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Starmer accuses Reform UK of backing the politics of grievance. They want to exploit people’s anger about small boats, he says.
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Stephen Gethins (SNP) urges Starmer to rejoin the Dublin agreement.
Starmer says he agrees with Gethin that it was a mistake for the UK to leave the Dublin agreement as a result of Brexit. He says he has negotiated a returns agreement with France.
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Starmer says it’s ‘disgrace’ that Farage has gone to US to lobby for sanctions on UK that would harm working people
Lola McEvoy (Lab) asks about the Online Safety Act, and invites the PM to join her in asking Nigel Farage to pick a side – is he supporting the UK or the US?
Starmer says Farage is not here. He goes on:
[Farage has] flown to America to bad mouth and talk down our country.
Worse than that, if you can believe it, he’s gone there to lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country to harm working people. [See 9.15am.]
You cannot get more unpatriotic than that. [Its a] disgrace.
Starmer says that, when he was asked what he would to do replace the Online Safety Act, Farage replied: “There needs to be a tech answer. I don’t know what that is.”
Starmer goes on: “You can’t run a country on don’t know answers.”
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Pete Wishart (SNP) complains about the Scottish government not getting advance notice of the budget date.
Starmer says the SNP should have welcomed the Norway deal, which will protect jobs in Scotland.
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Robin Swann (UUP) asks about the extension of inheritance tax for farmers.
Starmer mentions other measures the government is taking to help farmers, but does not address the inheritance tax point.
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Starmer says the ship deal with Norway is a sign of the UK being taken seriously on the world stage.
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Starmer rules out withdrawing from ECHR
Davey asks Starmer to rule out withdrawing from, or suspending, the European convention on human rights.
Starmer says the UK will not withdraw from it.
But he defends looking at how it is interpreted.
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Updated at 07.17 EDT
Starmer says there is ‘man-made famine’ in Gaza, and it’s ‘horrifying’
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks about Gaza. We have all seen the horrifying images, he says. The PM wants to stop this. He says Donald Trump is “the one man in the world” who can stop this. Will the PM urge him to do that when Trump visits the UK for the state visit.
Starmer agrees the situation in Gaza is “horrifying”. It is a “man-made famine”, he says. He will talk to all leaders about that.
He says, if Davey had not refused the state banquet invitation, he could have spoken to Trump about this himself. It is not an act of leadership not to attend, he says.
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Badenoch says the crisis was made in Downing Street. She says Starmer is “too weak to change course and too arrogant to admit he got things wrong”.
Starmer says Labour is putting out the fires left by the Tories.
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Badenoch says Labour is making a mess of the economy. Taxes are going up for everyone, she says. The country has to wait until 26 November for a budget. That is too long, she says.
Starmer says the government is going through due process for a budget. Under the Tories, they tried doing one without that (ie, without an OBR report). That blew up, she says.
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Badenoch says borrowing costs are going up because the markets can see he is “too weak to control spending”.
Starmer says Badenoch said at the weekend she inherited a huge mess. “I know exactly how she feels,” he says.
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Badenoch says she stands by everthing she says.
Starmer accuses her of talking down the country.
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Badenoch says Starmer would not have taken this attitude if it had been a Tory deputy PM. He used to say tax evasion was a crime.
She repeats her question about borrowing costs.
Starmer says Badenoch’s claims about the economy are as plausible as her claims about her place at Stanford university.
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Starmer defends Rayner, saying he is ‘proud’ to sit beside working class woman who became deputy PM
Kemi Badenoch asks why Angela Rayner is still in office. There is a crisis for the cabinet. But also for the country. When was government borrowing last this high?
Starmer says Rayner has explained her circumstances in detail. And she asked the court to lift a confidentiality order relating to her son. That was difficult, but she did it to make sure all the information is in the public domain.
But Starmer says he is “proud” to sit beside Rayner, who is building 1.5m homes and has come from a working class background to be deputy PM.
UPDATE: Badenoch said:
I also welcome the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister has referred herself to the ethics adviser. She has admitted that she underpaid tax. So why is she still in office?
And Starmer said:
[Rayner] has explained her personal circumstances in detail. She’s gone over and above in setting out the details, including yesterday afternoon asking a court to lift the confidentiality order in relation to her own son.
I know from speaking at length with the Deputy Prime Minister, just how difficult that decision was for her and her family, but she did it to ensure that all the information is in the public domain.”
I can be clear, I am very proud to sit alongside a Deputy Prime Minister who is building 1.5 million homes, who is bringing the biggest upgrade to workers’ rights for a generation, and has come from a working class background to be Deputy Prime Minister.
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Updated at 07.19 EDT
Dawn Butler (Lab) asks about taxing the gambing industry. Will the PM back the campaign for these taxes?
Starmer says councils should get extra powers to protect high streets. Councils will get stronger powers that will allow them to restrict gambling outlets, he says.
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PMQs is starting.
Keir Starmer says on Sunday the UK won a contract from Norway for the biggest ship order it has ever placed.
And he says the extra free childcare hours have been rolled out.
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Rayner says she discussed question of resigning with family after stamp duty error
In her Sky News interview, asked if she had considered resigning over the stamp duty error, Angela Rayner said she had discussed this with her family.
Asked if she thought about “packing it in”, Rayner replied:
I spoke to my family about it. I spoke to my ex-husband, who has been an incredibly supportive person because he knows that all I’ve done is try and support my family and help them.
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Rayner sidesteps questions about whether she can stay on as minister, saying she is ‘in shock’ about stamp duty error
Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, has given an interview to Sky News following her admission, in a statement to the Guardian, that she underpaid stamp duty on the £800,000 flat she bought in Hove. Here are the main points.
She admitted that she underpaid stamp duty, but she denied setting up a trust (for the ownership of her stake in her original family home) to avoid tax. Asked whether the accusations that she had underpaid stamp duty were correct, she said:
They are accurate. Yes. Accurate in a different sense. I think the accusations were that I set up a trust and I flipped it to try and avoid paying it.
But actually the complex area of the trust which the advice that I relied upon didn’t pick that up. The leading tax counsel who has subsequently looked at it has gone into that and said that actually, because of that, it did remain my sole property and the trust wasn’t set up as accusations have been made for me to try and flip.
People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.
I’ve been in shock, really, because I thought I’d done everything properly, and I relied on the advice that I received and I’m devastated because I’ve always upheld the rules and always have done.
And always felt proud to do that. I feel, you know, that it is devastating for me and the fact that the reason why those confidential clauses were in place was to protect my son, who, through no fault of his own, he’s vulnerable, he’s got this life-changing, lifelong conditions and I don’t want him or anything to do with his day-to-day life, to be subjected to that level of scrutiny because it’s his and my ex-husband that is… it’s not fair on them.
Often my family dragged in because of what my role is and what I do.
But I try to uphold the high standards, and that’s why I’ve referred myself so that the independent advice can look at everything.
She sidestepped questions about whether she would be able to carry on as a minister. Asked by Beth Rigby if she could stay in her job, “particularly as housing minister”, Rayner replied:
Well, I made a mistake based upon the advice that I relied upon that I received at the time, and a leading expert has now said that advice was wrong. I think hopefully most people can see, if you take, if you rely on advice given to you by lawyers and you follow that process and then you find out that that process is wrong and that advice is wrong, I’m rectifying it at the earliest opportunity. People make mistakes, but I conducted myself in trying to do the right thing, and I hope that people can see that.
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