Kemi Badenoch didn’t have the best start at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions: she asked a question that had apparently already been answered, allowing Keir Starmer to mock her early on. But the Prime Minister ultimately had the tougher session.
That repeated question first came from Lib Dem Christine Jardine at the very start of the session. She reported GPs and charities worrying that the rise in employers’ national insurance contributions meant they would not be able to keep offering patients the service they deserved. Starmer started replying that ‘because of the tough decisions we took’, before he was interrupted by theatrical groans from opposition MPs.
He then continued:
We have put forward a Budget with an extra £25.6 billion for the NHS and for social care. That includes an increase to carers’ allowance and £600 million available to deal with the pressures of adult social care. We will ensure that GP practices have the resources that they need and the funding arrangements between the NHS and contractors will be set out in the usual way.
After a planted question from a Labour backbencher about Badenoch’s views on maternity pay and other matters, Starmer had to face the leader of the opposition. She told the chamber: ‘The Prime Minister can plant as many questions as he likes with his backbenchers, but in the end I’m the one he has to face at the despatch box.’ She then accused Starmer of ‘unilaterally’ making a commitment on reducing emissions that would make life more expensive for people. Then she asked whether he would keep the cap on council tax. Starmer replied that he was ‘very proud of the fact that we’re restoring leadership on climate’. Badenoch said he had dodged the question, and then asked:
How much extra does he expect local authorities will have to raise to cover the social care funding gap created by the Chancellor’s budget and increases in employers’ NI? He told the member for Edinburgh West just now that he was covering social care, how much extra does he expect local authorities to raise?
Starmer replied:
It’s all very well, this knockabout, but not actually listening to what I said three minutes ago is a bit of a fundamental failure of the leader of the opposition. I just said £600 million. I repeat it, £600 million.
Badenoch then quoted the Local Government Association saying this figure would not cover the cost, and said that ‘it is clear that they have not thought through the impact of the Budget and this is the problem with having a copy and paste chancellor’. She then added that on Monday the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government revealed that councils will need to find an additional £2.4 billion on council tax. He asked whether Angela Rayner had made him ‘aware’ of the black hole for councils. Starmer’s retort was that the Conservatives had learnt nothing and that his party’s Budget was taking the difficult decisions. ‘They say they want all of that, but they don’t know how they’re going to pay for it. Same old Tories!’
The exchanges then went into whether the government was approving a four-day week for councils, allowing the same pay for less work. Starmer accused Badenoch of ‘fantasy’ questions and then went back to the Conservatives’ record.
Badenoch’s questions could have been clearer. But Starmer was not able to answer them. He did not acknowledge how councils would meet the shortfall on social care. He hadn’t really answered Jardine’s question on GPs and charities. So when Ed Davey then popped up for his two questions, he ended up struggling again with the warnings about the NI increase. The Liberal Democrat leader said: ‘I listened very carefully to what he said to my honourable friend, but I have to say I hope he can think again. Will he at least exempt GPs, community pharmacies and other health and care providers from this tax rise?’ Starmer argued that the government had made a ‘huge’ investment in the NHS and that people in the health service were ‘very pleased’. He added that the government would ‘ensure’ that GPs would get the resources they need, something Davey said wasn’t enough of an answer.
Straight after the Budget, the row about national insurance was focused on whether the government had broken the Labour manifesto promise not to raise taxes on working people. Starmer reiterated his insistence that he had kept that promise in the session today. But the trouble that this rise is causing the health sector is not going to go away, and Badenoch’s questions did contribute to that. Other notable moments in the session included Starmer joking that Nigel Farage was making a ‘rare appearance back here’ and had ‘spent so much time in America recently I was half expecting to see him on the immigration statistics’. He also refused to say that the assisted dying bill would get more time for MPs to debate it than the current five hours for second reading. But many of the other questions were just dreadful exercises in toadying from Labour backbenchers, who have fallen into the bad habit of accepting planted questions to give the Prime Minister a breather and praise him, rather than doing their job.
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