Oral Answers to Questions

Angela Rayner Excerpts

Wednesday 29th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising the work of Disability Action Yorkshire, which is doing terrific work in his constituency. I can reassure him that the Department for Work and Pensions is committed to improving awareness through campaigns and partnerships with employers, but also disability organisations. It is also working specifically on a digital service that will make the scheme more accessible and more visible.

[Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)]

I share with the Deputy Prime Minister his deepest condolences and his personal experiences as we mourn the loss of Dame Deborah James, who fearlessly campaigned to inspire so many and, I am absolutely sure, saved the lives of many more. I also think of the family of Zara Aleena, who was tragically murdered this week on the streets of Ilford.

I want to congratulate the two new hon. Members who won in the by-elections last week, including my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood). Last week the Government lost two by-elections in one day, for the first time in three decades. It is no wonder that the Prime Minister has fled the country and left the Deputy Prime Minister to carry the can. The people of Wakefield and Tiverton held their own vote of no confidence. The Prime Minister is not just losing the room; he is losing the country. But instead of showing some humility, he intends to limp on until the 2030s—so does the Deputy Prime Minister think the Cabinet will prop him up for that long?

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the right hon. Lady, and I gently point out to her that we want this Prime Minister to go on a lot longer than she wants the leader of the Labour party to go on. We have a working majority of 75. We are focusing on delivering for the British people. Record low unemployment would not have happened if we had listened to the Labour party. We have more policing and tougher sentencing enforced this week through the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. She voted against both; so did the Labour party. We will protect the public from these damaging rail strikes when we have the scene of Labour Front Benchers joining the picket lines.

[Angela Rayner]

Here we go again. The truth is that what I want for my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition is not to be the Leader of the Opposition but to be the Prime Minister of this country—and to be honest, it could not come quickly enough. Britain cannot stomach this Prime Minister for another eight years. His own Back Benchers cannot stomach him for another eight minutes. If they continue to prop him up, I doubt the voters will stomach him for even eight seconds at the ballot box.

Now, let us imagine that the Prime Minister is still clinging on into the 2030s. Under this high-tax, low-growth Tory Government, at this rate by 2030 the British public will have endured 55 tax rises. How many more tax rises will this Government inflict on working families before the Deputy Prime Minister says enough is enough?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think the right hon. Lady was right the first time. I will tell the House what we are doing: we have near-record levels of youth employment and 3.8% unemployment; we are cutting taxes next month on national insurance by £330 million; and we are delivering for families through the difficult times with the cost of living. What about the Labour party? We heard yesterday what its plan is: its plan is no plan. The leader of the Labour party said he is wiping the slate clean and starting from scratch. He has only been in the job two years. Sir Tony Blair, who has some experience of winning elections, has said there is a “gaping hole” in Labour’s policy offer, and all the while—there is a smile creeping over her face—the right hon. Lady is revelling in it. We are getting on with serving the people of this country; she is just playing political games.

[Angela Rayner]

I would revel in the opportunity for the people of this country to have more than just by-elections to show what they think of this Government. Call a general election, and see where the people are. The Deputy Prime Minister is a man who once said that high levels of government taxation were “hurting UK competitiveness”. Now, he is backing the Prime Minister, who wants to put taxes up 15 times. At this rate, working people will be paying £500 billion more in tax by 2030. How high does he think the burden on working people should get before he says enough is enough?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We are the ones helping working people with a tax cut of £330, with support for those on the lowest incomes, with the £650 support for 8 million people on the lowest incomes and with, frankly, record levels of investment coming into this country, from the £1 billion by Moderna for vaccines to the highest level of tech investment in Europe, according to Atomico. We are the ones with the plan for low unemployment and a high-wage, high-skill economy. For Labour, it is back to year zero.

[Angela Rayner]

The Deputy Prime Minister pretends to empathise with those struggling with the Tory cost of living crisis, when he himself once said that food bank users are not in poverty, but simply have “a cashflow problem”. He does not; he has spent more than £1 million in nine months on private jets. It shows how out of touch this Government are, but at this rate, by 2030, a million more people will be using food banks. How many more working people will be pushed into poverty by his Prime Minister before he says enough is enough?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

If the Labour party and the right hon. Lady want to help working people, they should be clear in standing up against these militant, reckless strikes by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers. The right hon. Lady has flip-flopped all over the place when it comes to these strikes. First, she said they were “lose-lose”. Then, she tweeted that

“workers were left with no choice”.

When she was asked by the BBC the straight question—she is normally a straight-shooting politician— of whether she liked the RMT, she said, “I am going to have to go now, I have a train to catch.” She talks about working people, but where was she when comrades were on the picket line last Thursday? Where was she when the Labour Front Benchers were joining them, rather than standing up for the public? She was at the Glyndebourne music festival, sipping champagne and listening to opera. Champagne socialism is back in the Labour party.

[Angela Rayner]

Well, well; that says a lot about the Conservative party. I will tell Conservative Members a few things about militancy. It is this Government who are acting in a militant way. While they should have been at the negotiating table, they were at the banqueting table getting hundreds of thousands squeezed out of their donors, instead of dealing with the crisis. The Deputy Prime Minister talks about trains. No one can get trains, because of his failed Transport Secretary. I will say that the Deputy Prime Minister has a stronger stomach than his—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I think we will have a little quiet. I want to hear the question, and hon. Members will also want to hear the answer.

[Angela Rayner]

Mr Speaker, I think it is rather ironic that you have to intervene because of the baying mob here, when the Government, through their noisy protest laws, have people being stopped after protesting out on the street. The thing is, they do not like it when the public say what they think of them. The right hon. Gentleman has a stronger stomach than his colleagues behind him—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Honestly, I want to hear the question and I want to hear the answer—and, I hate to say it to hon. Members, but so do their constituents. Think about them for once, instead of yourselves.

[Angela Rayner]

When Conservative Back Benchers were asked about the absent Prime Minister’s plans to stick around until 2030, one said that he had “lost the plot” and another said that

“anyone with half a brain”

would realise how dire things are. A former Conservative leader said that

“the country would be better off under new leadership.”

Now the Prime Minister is at war with his own Defence Secretary after confirming that he will break his manifesto pledge to increase defence spending. Under this Government, Britain is set to have less troops, less planes and less ships. The only thing the Prime Minister is interested in is defending his own job. Just how many more troops have to lose their jobs before the Deputy Prime Minister finally says enough is enough?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

In fact, there is a £24 billion increase for our armed forces. Spending on the armed forces is rising to 2.3% of GDP—again, making us the largest military spender in Europe. Frankly, we will take no lessons from the right hon. Lady when it comes to the security of this country. The first thing she did when she became an MP in 2016 was to vote against Trident, leaving us exposed, and she campaigned for the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), who would take us out of NATO, to be Prime Minister.

[Angela Rayner]

Talking about NATO, where was the right hon. Gentleman during the situation in Afghanistan? On a sun lounger; that is where he was. I take no lectures from him when it comes to doing my job. The Prime Minister said that he felt no shame over the by-election defeats and that the Government have been “quite exceptional”. Well, I agree that they have been exceptional, all right—an exceptional record on stagnant wages, rising poverty and broken promises. The Prime Minister wants to drag this out until the 2030s. How much more can the Deputy Prime Minister stomach before he finds the guts? How many more tax rises, how many more families driven into poverty, and how many manifesto pledges broken? For the sake of the British public, I hope that we never find out. When will he finally grow a backbone and tell the Prime Minister that the game is up?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Lady is auditioning for the leadership contest on her side of the House, and not really referring to anything that is happening on this side. [Interruption.] She has the support of the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). I will tell her what we are doing: we are putting in place the policies to grow our economy, to help—[Interruption.]