Here is the statement CCHQ issued about Keir Starmer’s winter fuel payments U-turn at the end of PMQs. Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretery, said:
Week after week at PMQs Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives have pressed the prime minister to U-turn on his cruel winter fuel payments cut. And week after week Keir Starmer defended the policy.
It’s taken the threat of his MPs losing their jobs, and his cabinet descending into open warfare over which taxes to raise, for the prime minister to finally recognise the hardship his winter fuel policy has caused.
Pensioners already suffering under this government’s spiralling inflation will want to see the detail of this latest screeching U-turn as soon as possible.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, did at least pick up on Keir Starmer’s winter fuel payments U-turn during their PMQs exchanges (see 12.17pm), immediately pushing for an assurance that the cuts would be reversed in full.
He is now saying that the U-turn will take too long, and that Starmer should apologise. In a statement issued after PMQs he said:
The world’s longest U-turn continues.
The prime minister has today announced the ‘concepts of a plan’ that have come far too late for the millions of pensioners forced to freeze in their own homes over the winter.
The least those people deserve is an apology for this punitive policy and a serious proposal from the prime minister on how he will begin to pick up the pieces from his government’s disastrous decision. Not vague words that will take months to materialise into something meaningful.
Here is the statement CCHQ issued about Keir Starmer’s winter fuel payments U-turn at the end of PMQs. Helen Whately, the shadow work and pensions secretery, said:
Week after week at PMQs Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives have pressed the prime minister to U-turn on his cruel winter fuel payments cut. And week after week Keir Starmer defended the policy.
It’s taken the threat of his MPs losing their jobs, and his cabinet descending into open warfare over which taxes to raise, for the prime minister to finally recognise the hardship his winter fuel policy has caused.
Pensioners already suffering under this government’s spiralling inflation will want to see the detail of this latest screeching U-turn as soon as possible.
All politicians have to perform U-turns from time to time. They can be performed competently, or badly, and the key factor is normally timing. Keir Starmer’s winter fuel payment U-turn today was probably somewhere inbetween.
On the hand, arguably it came six months too late. Labour has been massively damaged by the decision to remove the winter fuel payment from most pensioners, as campaigners discovered during the local elections. It is the Labour policy that people remember, and dislike, the most.
But a U-turn before the local elections would have just been an admission of a mistake. This U-turn, as Starmer’s words, is being linked to a narrative about the economy improving. (See 12.07pm.) In other words, it can be spun as part of a Treasury success story.
No 10 has been thinking about this for weeks (as the Guardian first reported) and it is clear now that, at the very least, the eligibility rules will be changed so that “more” pensioners get it next year. In theory it could be restored in full – ‘all’ is one version of ‘more’ – but given there are strong grounds for saying wealthy pensioners don’t need it, a new threshold seems the most likely option.
Given that No 10 may not have finalised the policy, you could have argued that Starmer should have delayed the U-turn until the budget in the autumn, when the full details will be available. But U-turns are like root canal surgery; the sooner you get it over and done with, the better.
U-turns are embarrassing because they mean the opposition has been shown to be right. Opponents normally respond with triumphalism – although U-turns tend to be bad for the opposition in the long term, because they remove a grievance holding the government back. (You don’t hear much about two-tier justice now after Shabana Mahmood 180-degreed on Sentencing Council guidelines the MoJ had approved only days before.)
But an opposition leader can only indulge in a victory lap if they have the gumption to spot the U-turn in the first place. And here Kemi Badenoch failed dismally today. It was obvious what Starmer was saying in his response to Sarah Owen. But she at first ignored it completely and, in a later question, without referencing his earlier comments, she asked:
Is he planning to U-turn on winter fuel cuts?
Starmer replied:
As the economy improves, we want to take measures that will impact on people’s lives and therefore we will look at the threshold, but that will have to be part of a fiscal event.
And – astonishingly – Badenoch still couldn’t, or wouldn’t, acknowledge what Starmer was saying. She described him as “a man who can’t give a straight answer to a simple question”. A more competent opposition leader would have immediately picked up on what Starmer was saying, welcomed it as a Tory victory (the Conservatives have been calling for this for months), and pushed for detail.
CCHQ did eventually come out with an appropriate response, which they sent to journalists at 12.29pm. When your press office has to sent out a statement with the words you should have used at PMQs yourself, you should know you’ve messed up.
Near the end of PMQs Rupert Lowe, the independent MP originally elected as Reform UK, asked Keir Starmer about the prison sentence given to Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for 31 months for inciting racial hatred last year. Yesterday she lost her appeal against the sentence.
Lowe asked:
Does the prime minister agree that imprisoning Lucy Connolly, a young mother with a 12-year-old daughter for one foolish social media post, soon deleted, is clearly not an efficient or fair use of prison?
Starmer replied:
Sentencing is a matter for our courts, and I celebrate the fact that we have independent courts in this country. I am strongly in favour of free speech, we’ve had free speech in this country for a very long time and we protect it fiercely.
But I am equally against incitement to violence against other people. I will always support the action taken by our police and courts to keep our streets and people safe.
At the end of PMQs Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, used a point of order to pay tribute to Patrick O’Flynn, the former Daily Express political editor and Ukip MEP, who has died at the age of 59. Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, echoed what Tice said, describing O’Flynn as a “long-serving and well-respected member of the lobby”.
O’Flynn was influential in persuading the Express newspapers to back Ukip and withdrawal from the EU in 2015, a move which helped to pave the way for other rightwing papers to back leave a year later. As an MEP, he was also one of the many Ukip politicians marginalised after a run-in with Nigel Farage – although that did not stop Farage paying tribute to him after his death was announced.
Kirsty Blackman (SNP) asks why the government is still selling Israel parts of F-35 jets, which are being used to drop bombs on starving people.
Starmer says Blackman does not understand how the process works. She “doesn’t know the detail at all”, he says
He says the UK does not give the parts directly to Israel. It contributes into a “pot” where parts for the jet go.
If we were to stop that, they couldn’t be used by other countries in the other conflicts, including those in which we are involved …
They’re not sold directly. They go into a pot. If we were to stop that, they wouldn’t then be available to others around the world who desperately need them in the conflicts they’re engaged in, and that’s why we won’t do it.
Lee Anderson (Reform UK) says Starmer keeps telling “gullible” MPs that he has deported 24,000 people. He says he thinks most of them are just over-stayers. How many are failed asylum seekers?
Starmer says he is proud the government has removed over 24,000 people. And the government is passing the borders bill, giving Border Force more powers. Reform UK voted against. And that is because Reform don’t want to fix the problem, he says. That is “party before country”.
And he points out that Anderson is standing in for Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, who is not here, and who was not in the Commons yesterday. Farage is on holiday. Referring to one of the UK-EU deal proposals, Starmer says Farage was “first through the e-gates”.
This generates a lot of laughter.
Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem MP who chairs the Commons environment committee, says his Labour-dominated committed has called for the inheritance tax plans to be delayed. Will the government agree?
Starmer declines to give that assurance, and says farmers will benefit from the deal with the EU.
Andrew Pakes (Lab) asks about the betting shops and vape stores taking over high streets. He asks if the government will help communities take back control of these spaces.
Starmer says planning laws can be used to protect these spaces.
Starmer pays tribute to Cheryl Korbel, whose campaign helped to persuade the government to change the law to impose new punishments on offenders how refuse to attend court for sentencing. He says he knows how important this is from his conversations with her.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, said Starmer “teased the house” with his comments about the winter fuel payments. Will he commit to reversing those cuts in full?
Starmer repeats what he said earlier (see 12.13pm), saying he wants to ensure that “more pensioners” are eligible.
Davey says he thinks he welcomes this. And he says he hopes carers also benefit from the improvements to the economy.
He asks about a family where a carer looks after her severely disabled husband and they will lose £12,000 from the cuts.
Starmer says people who need support should continue to get it. But he says the system must be reformed.
