A tough game - PMQs 29th January 2025

The match opened with Labour’s Damien Egan asking the Prime Minister to oppose means testing of the State Pension and committing to the ‘triple lock,’ which Starmer was glad to do, despite its estimated cost of £137.5 billion this year.

Instead of means-testing, how about raising the tax on the income of wealthier retirees, instead of persecuting employment with National Insurance rises? Or perhaps the assisted suicide Bill (if passed) and the continued use of the M&M (morphine and midazolam) kill-shot for the ill and old will help reduce the strain on the Treasury. Sign that Respect form, everybody?

The Leader of the Opposition began with a solemn reminder of the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. (A shame that the Russians who freed the camp had not been invited but we are/are not at war with them; it’s complicated.)

The Tories have a problem hurling stones at Labour from within their glass house. Kemi focused on the Employment Bill which she said either followed previous Conservative policies or would cost a lot. She accused Sir Keir of not knowing the provisions of his own Bill and even of having misled the House on the Education Bill last week - at that, the Speaker blew his whistle.

Badenoch cited various clauses in the Employment Bill that made it a ‘playground for lawyers’ and gave more power to the trade unions. Employers were hesitant about hiring; changes to sick pay rules might cost up to £1 billion extra. Entrepreneurs were disincentivised and millionaires were fleeing the country. By contrast the US and Argentina were slashing regulation. Despite the PM’s aspiration to economic growth he could not tax, borrow or legislate his way to it.

Starmer said that his Chancellor had given ‘a brilliant speech’ and the CBI had celebrated its ‘positive leadership and a clear vision to kickstart the economy.’ The Tories’ claimed ‘golden inheritance’ had been tested on 4 July (that said, the support of only 20.2 per cent of the electorate was hardly a mandate for his radical changes.)

After these exchanges there were twenty questions, half from Labour which were about:

Home insulation; the poverty of the disabled and the need to support them into work; the Ipswich bypass and the PM’s determination to back the builders over the blockers (oh, to be a construction company these days!); the shortage in council housing; the economic benefits of paternity leave (this from Luke Charters, awaiting sprog #2); compensation for sacked LGBT military and intelligence personnel; the commemoration for the service victims of a 2005 air disaster in Iraq; problems getting GP appointments.

Rossendale and Darwen’s Andy MacNae was upbeat about the devolution plan; Starmer said it was ‘moving power out of Westminster and into the hands of those with skin in the game’ (though others might say it was weakening the voice of local people.) Glasgow’s Gordon McKee made Scotland’s cold an advantage in bidding to become ‘an AI growth zone’ (though cheap Chinese AI may just have shot that fox.)

On the other side of the aisle, Rosie Duffield (Independent) asked about the Drax power station, which has received billions in subsidies (possibly illegally) to burn trees. The PM would look into it…

The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey again urged speed in hospital construction, and then asked the PM’s support for a ‘UK-EU customs union’; on the other hand North Antrim’s Jim Allister complained of over 300 areas of EU economic law governing Northern Ireland and the Republic rather than Britain - what did this imply for the retention of NI in the UK? Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) reminded us of the Omagh bombing; would Starmer encourage the Irish Government to cooperate in this enquiry into Irish terrorism?

Three other LibDems asked about building hospitals, one of them about the impact of NIC rises on ward staffing. Another (Paul Kohler) praised the system of restorative justice between perpetrators and their victims (high-minded, provided there is no hypocrisy.)

Only two Conservatives had shots at goal, both right at the end.

One was Sir Jeremy Wright, who said the compensation for Covid vaccine injuries was inadequate. The PM merely said he and the Health Secretary would ‘look at it.’

It’s a can of worms. We were stampeded into getting the shots by a Government (and Labour Opposition) that scared the Ghebreyesus out of us and today we don’t know how much more good they did than harm. America’s new Health Secretary is not only claiming that the disease was genetically modified to target certain races but that countries with a lower vaccination rate suffered fewer deaths.

The other Tory question, right before the whistle blew, came from Andrew Rosindell, quoting the Office for National Statistics who say that the UK population will rise to 72.5 million by 2032. Sir Keir countered with the Conservatives’ own record on immigration and vaguely promised that Labour would ‘bring those numbers down.’

Then the referee blew up - no extra time for that one.