Petitions and grievances - PMQs 27th November 2024

It may be a record: the Leader of the Opposition inviting the Prime Minister to resign after less than six months in office.

Kemi Badenoch referred to a petition started last Wednesday that she said was asking him to go (Out-On-His-Ear Keir?) At the time of writing it has 2.8 million signatures (easily outstripping the Green Party’s GE vote) and on Monday Parliament responded by setting up a new all-party group for ‘fair elections’ that more than 100 MPs have joined so far - over half of them Labour.

The PM replied that July’s General Election had been a petition (really it was more like an eviction order.) ‘The Mongoose’ missed a trick: the 4 July petitioners didn’t get what they asked for and got a lot they didn’t want.

Kemi raised the issue of employer’s NIC again - but Starmer countered that she and her shadow Science Minister had been contradicting each other as to whether they would reverse it. Fair comment; ‘Get that man’s number, sergeant!’

Quoting the head of McVitie’s doubts about the case for investment in the UK, Badenoch could not resist some biscuit jokes, stonily ignored by the PM. Part of his technique in handling the ‘tribal shouting match’ of Westminster is to dampen the mood like a Seventies movie’s downer ending.

Challenged to repeat the Chancellor’s pledge to the CBI not to borrow or tax more, Starmer demurred and resorted to his stock litany: ‘fixing the foundations [used twice]… £22 billion black hole… not hit the payslips of working people.’

Speaking of work, there were the 1,100 car jobs to be lost at Vauxhall in Luton, thanks in part to the commitment to ban new petrol vehicles by 2030. When Sir Keir reminded Badenoch that the EV mandates had been set by the Tories she replied that they had changed the date to make it easier for people. (We could have hoped for more ‘clear blue water’; perhaps this is another case of too much cross-party consensus.) Luton was also raised by Labour’s Rachel Hopkins; the PM responded with vague comments about ‘working with’ and ‘support’ and said there would be a statement later that day.

Ed Davey’s concern about the removal of winter fuel payments was similarly fended off by reference to Labour’s commitment to ‘clean energy’ and its potential to cut pensioner’s bills. So much depends on that bet, does it not? Let’s hope that the dark hypnotic gaze of Ed Miliband has not misled us.

Another of Davey’s queries, hooked on a tragic constituent’s story, was about underfunded end of life care (the ‘Doctor Death’ Bill will be debated again tomorrow) and the impact of the NIC hike on hospices; Sir Keir sort-of answered it by general reference to a ten-year plan for the NHS.

Like Kemi, the SNP’s Stephen Flynn attempted humour, linking the BBC’s scam awareness week with Labour’s energy bills, business taxes and pensioner robbery. This attracted the PM’s usual counterattack on the SNP’s performance and when his friend Frank McNally later raised the issue of Scotland’s clinical waste disposal Starmer was glad to say that that nation’s government now had powers, money and no excuses left. Such a joy, devolution; no wonder he looks forward to feet-up-Friday.

Enter the special interest people. Reform’s Rupert Lowe wanted stats on ‘foreign nationals receiving Universal Credit’; the PM promised them ‘as soon as I have an update.’

Imran Hussain (Independent) asked for a definition of Islamophobia and a commitment to root it out; Starmer widened his answer to include antisemitism. Labour’s Tahir Ali asked for protection against desecration of ‘all religious texts and the prophets of the Abrahamic religions’; Sir Keir said Labour was ‘committed to tackling all forms of hatred and division.’ Long-term, he faces a delicate balancing act.

We revisited the question of farmers and the changes to Agricultural Property Relief. Civil servants had belatedly done a little more homework so that Starmer was able to say that the threshold for paying Inheritance Tax on farms was £3 million in the case of ‘parents passing to a child.’ This is a complex matter and even the Lib Dems’ explainer does not quite do it justice. (E.g. one parent or two? How far, if at all, would the Residence Nil-Rate Band apply? More paperwork for Farmer and Mrs Giles after they’ve filled out forms for MAFF, DEFRA etc.)

While expressing gratitude for the Government’s setting matters right for mineworkers and their pension scheme, Ian Lavery (Labour) raked over the forty-year-old coals of policing the miners’ protests at Orgreave. Watch this space: it could be a fruitful source of stored-up political bitterness to aim at the Opposition.

Crossposted from Wolves of Westminster