Starmer refuses to rule out freezing tax thresholds in budget
Badenoch asks Starmer to confirm he won’t break another promise by freezing thresholds.
Starmer does not answer that, saying the budget is next week.
But Labour won’t return to austerity, he says.
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Badenoch says Reeves will be breaking Labour’s manifesto if she freezes income tax thresholds
Badenoch asks how the country can trust Reeves if she breaks a promise next week.
Starmer says the Tories have no credibility on the economy. Badenoch was a Treasury minister when living standards fell. And she says Liz Truss got the mini budget 100% right.
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Badenoch quotes what Rachel Reeves said in her budget speech last year, when she implied freezing thresholds would be a breach of the manifesto.
Why was that a broken promise last year, but not this year.
Starmer says the Tories just want to go back to the same failed experiment.
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Starmer refuses to rule out freezing tax thresholds in budget
Badenoch asks Starmer to confirm he won’t break another promise by freezing thresholds.
Starmer does not answer that, saying the budget is next week.
But Labour won’t return to austerity, he says.
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Kemi Badenoch asks why this government is the first government in history to float an income tax increase, then U-turn on it, “all after the actual budget” she says – meaning before the budget.
Starmer corrects her, saying the budget is next week.
He avoids the question.
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Starmer says the budget will be “based on Labour values”.
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Starmer refuses to commit to government intervening to stop Lords delays killing off assisted dying bill
Kit Malthouse (Con) says there are fears the Lords may block the assisted dying bill. Wil the government stop that? He says the government is neutral on the bill, but it should not be neutral on the Lords not being allowed to block a bill passed by the elected chamber.
Starmer says the governmnet is neutral on the passage of the bill.
And it is for parliament to decide on any issues.
Scrutiny is a matter for the Lords.
But the government must ensure legislation is workable.
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Keir Starmer starts by congratulating Scotland on their victory last night, qualifying for the World Cup.
There is loud cheering.
Starmer says one of the best goals came from a former Arsenal player (his team).
He expresses his sympathy for those affected by the floods in Wales.
And he expresses his condolences to the family of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary sailor who died this week in an accident.
And he says he is glad inflation is coming down.
ShareKeir Starmer leaving No 10 ahead of PMQs. Photograph: Carlos Jasso/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Starmer to take PMQs, as speculation continues about his leadership not being safe
Keir Starmer will be facing PMQs soon.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question. The Reform UK MP Lee Anderson has a question, which means Starmer might find an excuse to mention the Guardian report about his party leader. (See 10.43am.)
PMQs Photograph: HoC
Yesterday Starmer told his cabinet that he wanted them to focus on delivering and move on from “distractions”. But there does not seem much chance of that happening. In the Times today Stefan Boscia says the Tribune group, which represents soft left MPs and is being revitalised under new leadership, believes it has the numbers to forces a leadership contest. He says:
Senior MPs in the Tribune Group said they had the 80 MPs required to put a candidate into a leadership contest against Starmer, although they have yet to coalesce around a single candidate …
One leading member of the group said Starmer “has shown he doesn’t have the ability” to turn his premiership around after lurching from crisis to crisis during the first 16 months of government.
Another Tribune MP said: “It’s all about the polls. We can’t be below 20 per cent at the polls for much longer. We can’t carry on like this past May if the [local] elections are as bad as the polls show.”
In a post summarising what he and his colleagues are saying on the Times’s the State of It podcast, Steven Swinford, the paper’s poltical editor, says ministers believe Starmer will eventually have to go.
Ministers believe it is inevitable Starmer will go. They say spreadsheets are underway ahead of formal challenge but problem is there is more than one of them – there is as yet no clear alternative
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Updated at 06.57 EST
Mishal Husain calls for end to ministers picking BBC board members amid ‘existential crisis’
The former BBC journalist Mishal Husain has said the current crisis at the corporation feels “existential”, as executives prepare to be questioned about it in the House of Commons early next week. Robyn Vinter has the story.
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I have beefed up the earlier post at 10.29am with John Healey’s comments about the Russian spy ship Yantar with more direct quotes. You may need to refresh the page to get the update to appear.
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These are from Arj Singh from the i who asked John Healey at the press conference about the propects of the UK joining the EU’s Safe defence investment fund. (See 10.40am.)
Downbeat assessment of chances of the UK joining the EU rearmament fund from Defence Sec John Healey
As we reported last week, UK prepared to walk away as EU demands billions to “pay to play”:
Healey said the UK is willing to contribute to the “costs” of running the SAFE rearmament scheme but won’t pay for something that lacks value for money
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Farage biographer Michael Crick says Reform UK leader should apologise in light of new evidence of his schoolboy racism
Yesterday the Guardian published a long investigation into Nigel Farage’s time as a schoolboy at Dulwich College, a private school in south London, and it quoted multiple contemporaries (mostly on the record) who call him being racist and antisemitic. Reform UK says the claims are without foundation.
This morning Michael Crick, who published a biography of Farage three years ago, is urging Farage to apologise.
Crick, who is a very distinguished investigative reporters and biographer, looked into the claims about Farage’s racism in his youth in some detail. He quoted people who recalled Farage saying deeply offensive things. But, in the book, he said the pictured was “confused”. He explained:
Old Boys from his time probably divide fairly equally. For everyone who recalls Farage voicing extreme views, another will say they heard nothing untoward.
Today Crick says he has revised his view in the light of the Guardian investigation, which he says builds on his work and goes further. He says Farage should apologise.
Today’s Guardian feature on Farage’s anti-semitism & racism at Dulwich College is largely based on my book One Party After Another & my past films for C4News, but they’ve got more witnesses, & more detail, so it’s not credible to deny his vile pattern of behaviour at that time.
Rather than completely deny his behaviour – which Farage didn’t entirely do back in 2013 – he & Reform UK would do better publicly to make a genuine heartfelt apology to the Dulwich boys who suffered his anti-semitic & racist bullying. Farage & Reform’s denials aren’t credible.
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Updated at 06.14 EST
Healey says UK wants to join EU’s Safe defence investment scheme, but not ‘at any price’
Q: What are the chances of the UK and the EU getting a deal on UK being admitted to the EU’s Safe (Security Action for Europe) fund, which will provide loans to finance defence investment, given the two sides are so far apart?
(It has been reported that the EU wants the UK to contribute €6bn to participate, and that the UK is only willing to pay a fraction of that.)
Healey says he hopes there will be a deal. The UK has been waiting for weeks for details from Europe. The UK is ready to be part of the scheme, but not “at any price”. The British defence industry is “second to none” in Europe.
Britain will play its part in the defence of Europe, “in or out of Safe”.
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Q: Why are we selling jets to Turkey when it is the third largest importers of Russian oil?
Because it is a major Nato country, Healey says.
And he says that bringing another country into the group of Typhoon-flying nations will strengthen European security.
And the deal will help secure 20,000 UK jobs for years, he says.
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Asked about the spy threat from China, Healey says the Commons speaker gave advice to MPs. He does not know if MoD officials have been approached using the methods described yesterday when the threat to parliamentarians was described.
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Healey says he’s change rules of engagement to respond to Russian spy ship shining lasers at RAF pilots
At the start of his speech Healey said a Russian spy ship called Yantar is on the edge of British waters. He said it had been mapping undersea cables, and shining lasers at RAF pilots, which he said was “highly dangerous”. He said:
My message to Russia and to Putin is this: We see you. We know what you’re doing. And if the Yantar travels south this week, we are ready.
Asked about this in the Q&A, Healey says this is the first time Yantar has done this. The government is taking it extremely seriously. He says he has changed the terms of engagement, so that the UK can follow it more closely when it is in British waters. He says he will not give details, but he says the government has “military options ready”.
The last time Yantar was there, the MoD surfaced a nuclear-powered submarine that had been tracking it, which it did not know about, he says.
UPDATE: Healey said:
On the Yantar, this is the second time in a year that it’s entered UK waters.
It is part of a Russian fleet designed to put and hold our undersea infrastructure and those of our allies at risk.
It isn’t just a naval operation. It’s part of a Russian programme driven by what they call the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research, or GUGI, and this is designed to have capabilities which can undertake surveillance in peacetime and sabotage in conflict.
That is why we’ve been determined, whenever the Yantar comes into British wider waters, we track it, we deter it and we say to Putin we are ready, and we do that alongside allies.
You saw this last year in the way that Britain led the response to attacks on critical infrastructure with other Baltic and Nordic nations, and then Nato stepped in as well with their operation.
So, it’s a demonstration, if you like, of a British readiness to act, a British capability to act, because, make no mistake, we will not tolerate a threat to the British people’s essential connections under water.
And, asked specifically about the ship shining lasers at RAF pilots, Healey said:
Clearly, anything that impedes, disrupts or puts at risk pilots in charge of British military planes is deeply dangerous.
This is the first time we’ve heard this action from [Russian ship] Yantar directed against the British RAF. We take it extremely seriously.
I have changed the Navy’s rules of engagement so that we can follow more closely, monitor more closely the activities of the Yantar when it’s in our wider waters.
HMS Somerset (front) shadowing the Russian spy ship Yantar near UK waters in January this year.
Photograph: Royal Navy/PAShare
Updated at 06.01 EST
This is what Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, posted during John Healey’s speech.
Watching a rare speech from def sec John Healey in 9 Downing St. A special outing from Labour’s safest pair of hands in an attempt to short up messy budget pitch rolling, justifying boost to defence budgets. “We’re getting on with the job we were elected to do,” he says.
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Q: Do you agree with the German govenrment’s assessment that Russia could attack Europe within five years? And can Britain be put on a war footing without taxes going up?
Healey says the government cannot turn around the situation overnight.
The government has set out its plans. And it has a “Nato first” commitment, because the UK won’t fight alone.
Private investment is rising too, he says.
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