The biggest winner from the first PMQs session of the new parliamentary term? Angela Rayner.
The Deputy Prime Minister has spent the last weeks of summer under fire over her tax and housing situation, after reports emerged that she paid the lower “main home” rate of stamp duty on a flat she purchased in Hove. The home she mostly lives in is understood to be a property in her constituency of Ashton-under-Lyne, which she does not technically own but which has been placed in trust for her disabled son following her divorce. After mounting speculation, Rayner released a highly personal statement this morning admitting that on the advice of her lawyers she had underpaid stamp duty on the Hove flat (estimated to be as high as £40,000), and had now referred herself to the independent adviser on ministerial standards.
It’s pretty explosive ammunition for an opposition leader looking for ways to take aim at one of the most high-profile (and, indeed, popular) members of Keir Starmer’s government, whose name routinely comes up in conversations about who might replace him. Any story of Labour wrongdoing is particularly potent, given how heavily Starmer leaned into the theme of “Tory sleaze” when he was in opposition, hammering Boris Johnson and other Conservatives with accusations of cronyism and misconduct – an act Rayner herself was keen to get in on.
Returning to parliament with the grim knowledge that Reform UK has spent the summer cementing its poll lead and the Tories are still languishing at around 17 per cent, Kemi Badenoch, had an opportunity. Fire six questions at the Prime Minister on his deputy, citing occasions in the past when both he and Rayner have taken a no excuses line on some other MP’s misdemeanour, and watch Starmer squirm. And, indeed, that’s what she appeared to be doing. Badenoch began (having first expressed condolences over the sudden death of former Tory MP David Warburton) with a smile on her face, asking of Rayner: “She has admitted she underpaid tax – so why is she still in office?”
The Tory leader could have stopped here – and the frozen look on Rayner’s face sitting next to Starmer suggested the Labour frontbench was grimly resigned to this line of questioning. Instead, Badenoch continued, segueing awkwardly onto the economy and asking when was the last time the cost of borrowing was so high.
To be clear, the economy is hardly an easy topic for the government. Yesterday’s news that UK borrowing costs are at a 27-year high is exactly what Rachel Reeves didn’t want to hear as she begins preparing for the unnervingly late Autumn Budget on 26 November. But bundling the questions together enabled Starmer to deliver a sober defence of Rayner, arguing that she had gone “over and above” what was required by fully explaining her tax affairs – before pivoting to point out that borrowing costs have risen across Europe (as Will Dunn outlined in today’s Morning Call), taking the sting out of Badenoch’s attempted hit on the integrity of the Labour team.
Badenoch then repeated the same mistake, accusing Starmer of hypocrisy (“If he had any backbone he would sack her”), before derailing her own momentum by switching back to the economy. Starmer was on familiar ground, reiterating yet again all the ways the Conservatives had failed on the economy. He also played a card Badenoch must have known was coming, with the jibe that “her claims about the economy are about as credible as her place at Stanford University,” which prompted a round of pantomime-esque oooohs across the Chamber. It wasn’t clear whether Badenoch’s follow-up line – “I stand by every single thing I have said”– was in reference to her economic policies or the highly disputed and so-far-unproven claim that she received an offer and scholarship at Stanford at age 16 despite never having applied. Either way, her subsequent attempts to attack Labour’s record on the economy fell flat. The rest of their head-to-head was a stalemate – but a stalemate Starmer and Rayner will be quite happy to take as a win, given how the day started.
None of this is to suggest, by the way, that Labour should be relaxed ahead of the Budget. And there may well come a moment soon when Starmer starts to regret just how hard he pushed the “Liz Truss crashed the economy” argument – as Will Dunn points out, this narrative “became a trap for Labour, which has governed in abject fear of the bond markets ever since”. Good luck to the newly appointed Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones…
The mood for the rest of the session can best be described as “tense”. There was an unusually brittle exchange between the Prime Minister and Ed Davey, with the Lib Dem leader pressing on some Labour bruises: the situation in Gaza, Donald Trump, and the future of Britain and the ECHR. Starmer, who usually treats Davey with the utmost courtesy (in contrast to his spats with Badenoch), noted that Davey had refused an invitation to the state banquet with the US President and remarked, “It’s not an act of leadership to pass up that opportunity.” Divisions between the Lib Dems and Labour are becoming more pronounced as we head into the second party conference season of this government. Perhaps Davey is calculating that, with the potential of two insurgent parties challenging Labour from the left, the Liberal Democrats might need to up their game to stay relevant. He did, however, get Starmer to rule out leaving the ECHR, which is increasingly becoming both a battleground and a purity test – for all the parties.
Nigel Farage wasn’t in the Commons today, having flown stateside to give evidence to the US on Britain and free speech. That gave Starmer a chance to accuse his absent rival of going to Washington to “lobby the Americans to impose sanctions on this country to harm working people” – although the timing of Farage’s trip couldn’t be more opportune for the Reform leader, given yesterday’s arrest of Graham Linehan over social media posts. Also absent was the new leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski, as he is not an MP. That didn’t stop Starmer from taking a swipe at him in response to a question from Green MP (and Polanski’s defeated opponent) Ellie Chowns, reminding the House that he has made “some very strange comments about women”. A taster of what is to come under the new Green regime.
But the most notable question of PMQs this week went to Richard Burgon. The left-wing Labour MP (one of those who had the whip suspended last July over the two-child benefit cap, but restored in February) delivered more of a monologue than a question, warning of the risk of “the election of an extremist, far-right government.” He stressed the need to “return to real Labour values,” calling for a wealth tax on the super-rich and an “ethical foreign policy that takes a strong principled stand on war crimes, whoever commits them.” Starmer looked thrown by the intensity of the not-really-question, but the faces of some Labour MPs suggested Burgon wasn’t alone in his assessment. Heading into the new term, the Prime Minister may find he faces more trouble from his own back benches than from Kemi Badenoch.
[See also: How Labour learned to love the flag]
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