Jesse Norman, the shadow leader of the Commons, raises a point of order. He says viewers will have seen Keir Starmer refuse to answer Kemi Badenoch’s questions. Instead Starmer started talking about Russia, he says. He asks whether Starmer should have been allowed to change the subject like that. In reply, Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, says that at PMQs “the scope has always been that we’ve always questioned the answers whoever has been at that dispatch box”. This came out as jibberish, but the point he seemed to be making was that at PMQs it is customary for the Speaker to allow the PM to answer questions however he likes. David Davis (Con) says Starmer once wrote a book on miscarriages of justice. But people only get compensation if they can prove their innocence beyond reasonable doubt. This means 93% of victims do not get compensation. Starmer says this is an important issue. He will ensure the government considers this. Sarah Dyke (Lib Dem) says the police in Glastonbury need more resources to tackle the problem with anti-social behaviour in the constituency. Starmer says Dyke is right to raise this issue. David Pinto-Duschinsky (Lab) asks Starmer to criticise other parties not backing Labour’s plans on flood defences. Starmer says the last government left flood defences in the worst state on record. Gregory Stafford (Con) says his constituency needs more GPs. Starmer says the last government left the NHS on its knees. Lincoln Jopp (Con) says Starmer said he was a socialist during the election. It has been surprising to learn Nigel Farage is one too. Will Starmer remind Rachel Reeves of Margaret Thatcher’s saying about the problem with socialists being that they eventually run out of other people’s money. Starmer says Jopp relaced Kwasi Kwarteng. He claims the Tories have made unfunded commitments worth £18bn. It is Liz Truss 2.0, he says. Natalie Fleet (Lab) says she will speak out for rape victims who have having to wait years for justice. Starmer says some women are having to wait far too long for justice. The Tories left the prison system on the point of collapse, he says. Manuela Perteghella (Lib Dem) asks about the impact of the national insurance increase on care providers. When will the government offer them relief? Starmer says the government has announced £500m for local authorities to help them manage the NICs increase. He says the Lib Dems opposed the budget. They cannot ask for more spending, but oppose the budget that provides it. Starmer says the government inherited an “appalling” water system. The era of rewards for failure is over, he says. Sarah Pochin, the new Reform UK MP, asks Starmer to ban the burqa in the interests of public safety, as some other European countries are doing. Starmer welcomes Pochin to the Commons, but says he will not follow her advice on this. He says Pochin should tell her party leader to abandon Liz Truss economics. Graeme Downie (Lab) says the SNP government is letting down young people in Scotland. Starmer says the SNP is blocking an investement for a new welding centre on the Clyde. Brendan O’Hara (SNP) says government lawyers recently argued in court that no genocide is occuring in Gaza. Is Starmer willing to say that here? Starmer says he is appalled by Israel’s recent actions, including the expansion of military action, the actions of settlers, and the blocking of aid. The SNP want to get rid of the nuclear deterrent, he says. Alex Barros-Curtis (Lab) praises the government for getting an exemption from steel tariffs for the UK. That will help workers in Wales, he says. Starmer says the opposition do not support the deal that has led to this exemption. They are not backing British workers, he says. Rachel Gilmour (Lib Dem) asks about a constituent who cannot work because of hger caring responsibilities who is unable to obtain disability living allowance. Will Starmer reassure her the government is doing all it can to help. Starmer says the government will look into this. Ruth Jones (Lab) asks the government to ban the import of real fur. Starmer says the animal welfare committee is producing a report on this issue. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says he welcomes the reports more pensioners will get winter fuel payments this winter. He praises Starmer for pulling out all the stops to ensure the steel tariffs don’t cover the UK. But now President Trump is threatening to reimpose those tariffs if the UK does not sign up to the deal with the US within five weeks. Starmer says he thinks MPs will be very pleased with the outcome of the US-UK deal, which is still being finalised. Davey says he was hoping that Starmer was starting to see Trump for the sort of man he is. Turning to Gaza, he says the US-Israeli aid programme is failing. Will the UK push at the UN for humanitarian corridors to get aid into Gaza. Starmer says he is working with allies “at pace” on this very issue. Badenoch says it is chaos under Starmer. Starmer says Badenoch does not do the work needed. She just looks at social media every Wednesday to decide what to ask. Badenoch says Starmer had to look in his folder to see what he believed in. Starmer says he has looked in his folder, for the quote from the Russian embassy praising Badenoch. He reads it out. [The embassy] put out a statement saying the leader of the opposition has finally called a spade a spade, Ukraine is indeed fighting a proxy war against Russia on behalf of Western interests. Starmer says, by contrast, he stands by Ukraine. Badenoch says the Tories support the cap because they believe in fairness. What does he believe in? Starmer says he believes in driving down child poverty. He says Badenoch was praised by the Russian embassy this week for echoing Kremlin talking points. Badenoch says there was no black hole according to the IFS. She says Labour has created a £30bn black hole with the its Chagos Islands deal. Will the government scrap the two-child benefit cap? Starmer says he wants to drive down child poverty. Badenoch claims she asked three questions about WFP two weeks ago, and she says Starmer was “floundering”. She asks Starmer to apologise for pensioners, and asks how the U-turn will be paid for. Starmer says Badenoch should apologise for the black hole the Tories left. Kemi Badenoch says Reeves is rushing her winter fuel payment plans “because she has just realised when winter is”. How many pensioners will benefit? Starmer says Badenoch is catching up on two weeks ago (a reference to Badenoch seeming to miss the WFP announcement from Starmer two weeks ago). He does not answer the question. Clive Efford (Lab) says the 2012 Olympics showcased the UK at its best. He asks if the government will back the bid for the UK to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships in London. Starmer says the Olympics were one of the greatest achievements of the last Labour government. He recalls Tessa Jowell’s contribution. But he won’t answer the question. Keir Starmer starts by talking about the £15.6bn investment in transport infrastructure in the north and in the Midlands. And he says the defence review shows the government will never gamble with national security. The Conservative party says the £15bn for transport infrastructure announced by Rachel Reeves today is essentially just a rehash of the Network North City Region Sustainable Transport Settlements set out by the last government in 2023. Gareth Davies, a shadow business minister, said: Rachel Reeves is scrambling to salvage her failing economic plan after the prime minister has made U-turn after U-turn, punching holes in her credibility. She needed to do better than copying and pasting announcements made by the previous Conservative government. The country is not falling for their lies anymore. Britain deserves better. PMQs is imminent. Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question. Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent. Party leaders are kicking off the final day of campaigning in the key Holyrood byelection in the central Scotland seat of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. It’s been a closely fought campaign, marred by Reform UK’s escalating racist attacks on Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar. While Nigel Farage accepted on his one and only visit to Scotland on Monday that he did not expect his party to win tomorrow, there has been speculation that Reform UK might push Scottish Labour into third place in a contest that is being seen as a significant bellwether for next year’s Holyrood elections. This morning Sarwar was out early on the campaign trail with his candidate Davy Russell, a local figure who has drawn criticism for his unwillingness to engage with the media but who Scottish Labour sources insist is a popular choice whose lack of polish cuts through with voters. Sarwar was reportedly heckled about Waspi women – one of many Westminster-led policies that have come up on the doorstep, hampering Labour’s campaign. Meanwhile SNP leader and Scottish first minister John Swinney urged voters in the constituency to back his party in a bid to “stop Nigel Farage”, talking up Reform UK’s prospects and saying that when he’s on the doorstep more voters tell him they want to vote Reform than Labour. Critics have pointed out that the unexpected popularity of Reform in this byelection has served the SNP well in terms of framing, although they too appear to be losing voters to the rightwing populists. There will be an urgent question on Gaza after PMQs, tabled by the Labour MP Paula Barker. After that, at about 1.15pm, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the Treasury, will make a statement on regional growth (covering the measures announced by Rachel Reeves, presumably). After that, at around 2.15pm, we will get the Jeremy Corbyn 10-minute rule bill on a public inquiry into UK support for the Israeli assault on Gaza. And here is a Guardian video with an extract from the speech. Here are some pictures from the Rachel Reeves speech and Q&A. Q: Do you hope to scrap the two-child benefit cap? Reeves said that was a policy inherited from the last government. The government is “determined to reduce child poverty as a moral mission”, she said. And that was the end of the press conference. Q: Will we get more details about the winter fuel payments policy in the spending review next week? Reeves said she made difficult decisions last year. But the economy is now on a firmer footing. She went on: The economy is in a better shape, but we have also listened to the concerns that people had about the level of the means test, and so we will be making changes to that. They will be in place so that pensioners are paid this coming winter, and we’ll announce the detail of that, and the level of that, as soon as we possibly can. But people should be in no doubt that the means test will increase and people will get more people will get winter fuel payment this winter. Two weeks ago, when Keir Starmer announced the winter fuel payments U-turn at PMQs, No 10 was unable to confirm that it would be implemented in time for more pensioners to benefit this winter. But on Monday Keir Starmer hinted that the government will announce exactly how many pensioners will get their winter fuel payments reinstated in the spending review next week. Reeves says the UK is the only country to be exempt from the new US steel tariffs. That is because of the work down by Jonathan Reynolds and Keir Starmer, she says. The UK remains the only country to have done a trade deal with the US. But it has also done deals with India and the EU, she says. Q: In the light of Mark Rowley’s comments (see 9.13am), which crimes would the government be happy for the police to ignore? Reeves says she is increasing spending on the police in the spending review, adding: “So that’s not a choice that I would recognise.” Q: Will you repeat the claim you made last year about last year’s budget being a once-in-a-generation tax rising event? Yes, says Reeves. She says she raised £40bn in the budget last year. She goes on: I have absolutely no intention of repeating a budget on that scale again. Q: What did you think of Angela Rayner’s proposals for tax rises? Reeves says Rayner proposed tax rises worth about £3bn in total. She says in her budget last year she raised taxes by £40bn in total, which was “much more”. (In fact, the Rayner plans would have raised more than £4bn, the leak suggested.) Q: Will you repeat your election pledge not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT? Reeves says she has already answered that in her reply to Carl Dinnen. (See 10.14am.) She goes on: The commitment that we made in the manifesto not to increase the key taxes that working people pay - income tax, VAT and national insurance – are promises that we stand by. We will implement what was in our manifesto. Q: [From Sky’s Beth Rigby] Do you accept the arguments of people like Angela Rayner and Andy Burham that some taxes will have to go up? Reeves says she is not going to write budgets for the next four years now. But she says she has already changed the fiscal rules to allow more investment. Q: [From ITV’s Carl Dinnen] Are Labour’s manifesto commitments on policing, housingn and energy at risk? There have been reports saying the spending review settlements will mean some commitments cannot be funded. But Reeves denies this. She replies: We made those commitments in our manifesto and we stick to them. All of the manifesto commitments that we made were fully costed and fully funded. Q: If you are determined to stick to your fiscal rules, will you level with people about how tough your settlement will be next week? Reeves says she changed the fiscal rules last year, and raised taxes. Taken together, that means she can spent more on day-to-day spending and on capital spending. Overall, that means total spending will be £300bn more than what was planned by the last government, she says. She repeats her point about, how if she were to give up the fiscal rules and let borrowinng get out of control, ordinary people would suffer. Reeves is now taking questions. Q: [From Manchester Evening News] What do you think of the plan for a new rail link between Manchester and Liverpool. Reeves says today she is focusing on the mayoral settlement. She is not talking about national rail plans today. But there is more to come next week, she says. Reeves says she is today announcing £15.6bn in transport investment. (See 9.30am.) And she explains why transport is so important. Connectivity is an absolutely critical factor in unlocking the potential of towns and cities outside of London – one of the areas in which previous governments have promised most but delivered least, and that will now change. Let me tell you why it matters. Modern growth rests on dynamic, connected city regions, creating clusters of activity so that people can get around, communicate, share ideas, commute, find good work and earn wages that flow back into strong local economies. The stronger transport links within cities and the towns around them create opportunity by connecting labour markets and making it easier for firms to buy and sell goods and services in different places to different people. Labour’s strong investment in the past in strongly integrated transport systems, including in London, helps explain London’s global success and also its advantages over other UK cities. Now we want London to succeed, but it is the lack of that infrastructure which puts England’s other great cities, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, at a disadvantage compared to their European counterparts that have this infrastructure, and it helps to explain our underperformance relative to other European economies. If we were to increase the productivity of those second cities in the UK to match the national average, our economy today would be £86bn larger. Reeves says she has also changed how the Treasury’s “green book” evaluates projects when it decides if they are worth investing in. The Treasury green book sets the guidance for how public servants assess the value for money of government projects. It may sound dry, but it is one of the reasons why there hasn’t been enough investment in the north and the Midlands for decades. I have heard from mayors across the country, from Andy [Burnham], but also from Steve Rotheram, the mayor of Liverpool, that previous governments have wielded the green book against them as an excuse to deny important investments in their areas and their people. That is why, in January, I ordered a review of the green book and how it is being used to make sure that this government gives every region a fair hearing when it comes to investments. I will publish the full conclusions of that review next week. However, I can tell you now that it will mark a new approach to decision making in government, and an end to siloed Whitehall thinking, making sure that government is taking account of the reinforcing economic effects of infrastructure investment in housing, in skills, and in jobs. (The argument against the old rules was that they focused on potential overall gains to the UK economy, which meant that transport projects in the south-east, which would stimulate economic activity by high-earning workers, invariably seemed better value than projects elsewhere in Britain that would stimulate economic activity by workers earning less.) Reeves says her changes to the fiscal rules last year will make more investment possible. The decisions that we made in October mean that, for the first time, the Treasury actually takes account of the benefits and not just the costs of investment, and together, the fiscal rules mean that, unlike our predecessors, we will not be balancing the books by cutting investment. And that is why we can increase investment by over £113bn more than the last government plans, meaning public investment will be at its highest sustained level since the 1970s. Reeves says in the spending review next week “not every department will get everything that they want”. And she goes on: I have had to say no to things that I want to do too, but that is not because of my fiscal rules. It is the result of 14 years of Conservative maltreatment of our public services, our public realm and of our economy. Reeves is now talking about her fiscal rules. Now, contrary to some conventional wisdom, I didn’t come into politics because I care passionately about fiscal rules. I came into politics because I want to make a difference to the lives of working people, because I believe – as strongly now as I did when I was inspired to join the Labour party almost 30 years ago – that every person should have the same opportunities as others. But rules matter because Liz Truss showed what “the dangers of reckless borrowing” with her mini budget, she says. And she goes on to attack Reform UK. It was working people who paid the price [for the Truss mini-budget]. Be in no doubt, Nigel Farage and Reform are itching to repeat that exact same experiment, to pursue those fantasy economics all over again. And the results – well, they would be the same – market instability, interest rates rising with soaring rents and thousands of pounds extra on families mortgages. Reeves says opportunity has not been fairly shared. As a Leeds MP, she knows that areas have been held back by decisions made in London. She says she will hold a regional investment summit later this year with regional mayors. Reeves says recent figures showed UK to be the fastest growing economy in the G7. And she says real wages rose more in less than 10 months under Labour than they did in the first 10 years of the last Conservative government. Rachel Reeves is speaking now. She is speaking at the Mellor bus factory in Rochdale. She starts by saying she wants to explain how Labour will build a stronger Britain. She knows how hard it has been, she says. She says the central barrier to growth has been underinvestment. The central barrier to economic growth has been underinvestment. For too long, Britain has lagged behind every other G7 economy when it comes to business investment as a share of GDP. One of the consequences was that the last parliament was the worst on record for living standards. Her policy is build on three pillars, she says: stability, reform and investment. Burnham says good transport powers good growth. He says Manchester has been a model for this. (He set out this argument at length in a very interesting speech on this earlier this year.) Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, is introducing Rachel Reeves. He says he is pleased the government is backing Manchester Bee transport network with £2.5bn. He goes on: With the funding provided by the government, we will create the UK’s first fully integrated, all-electric, zero emission public transport system, and we will do that by the end of the decade. Since it does not seem to be available yet on the Treasury’s website, here is the list of transport projects for English city regions that Rachel Reeves is announcing, as set out in a Treasury press release last night. Good morning. A week today Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will unveil the outcome of the spending review, which will set spending budgets – day-to-day (“resource”) and capital – covering most of the rest of this parliament. Many departments will get resource budgets that feel like cuts, but the Treasury has a more positive story to tell on capital spending and today Reeves is giving a speech announcing a £15bn spending spree on transport projects, mostly in the north of England. Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot have all the details in our splash story. As Pippa and Jess report, the Home Office is one of three departments that has yet to settle its budget with the Treasury. According to a report in the Times, in a bid to help the Home Office, Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Gavin Stephens, the head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, and Graeme Biggar, the head of the National Crime Agency, have written to the PM saying they are “deeply concerned” about what is in offer for the police. They say: We are deeply concerned that the settlement for policing and the [NCA], without additional investment, risks a retrenchment to what we saw under austerity. This would have far-reaching consequences. Policing and the NCA have seen a sustained period where income has not kept pace with demand. Often, this has been masked by attempts to defer costs in the hope of more income in future, but that now leaves policing with very limited room for manoeuvre. A settlement that fails to address our inflation and pay pressures flat would entail stark choices about which crimes we no longer prioritise. The policing and NCA workforce would also shrink each year. The Times has summarised this in its splash headline as meaning the police chiefs are saying proposed cuts will mean “some crimes must be ignored”. That sounds grim, although the headline writer may have forgotten that many crimes are ignored already. In its election manifesto last year, Labour had a striking line about the police. “Labour has a straightforward vision for policing and criminal justice. When you call the police, they should come.” Here is the agenda for the day. 9.20am: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, gives a speech in Greater Manchester on infrastructure spending. 9.30am: Torsten Bell, the pensions minister, gives evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee about pensioner poverty. Morning: Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, is campaigning in Hamilton ahead of the Scottish parliamentary byelection tomorrow. Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs. 12.30pm: Jeremy Corbyn, the former Labour leader, uses the 10-minute rule bill procedure to propose a bill calling for a public inquiry into “UK involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza”. 4.40pm (UK time): John Healey, the defence secretary, holds a press conference with his German and Ukrainian counterparts after a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word. If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Author: Andrew Sparrow