Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 21st April 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. He and the whole House are aware of the pressure that young people, in particular, can feel as a result of doctored images. As part of the consultation on the online advertising programme, we will look at what we can do, and I know that we will be responding to the Select Committee’s report in due course.

[Keir Starmer (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

May I join the Prime Minister in wishing Her Majesty a very happy birthday? The last few weeks have been a time of incredible personal anguish and we all send Her Majesty and the royal family our very best wishes.

May I also join the Prime Minister in his comments about the verdict in the George Floyd case? There has been justice in that case.

Even as an Arsenal season ticket holder, I join the Prime Minister in his comments about the European super league, which would have destroyed football. We now need to get on with the other changes that are necessary.

Finally, Mr Speaker, may I send my condolences to the family of Frank Judd, who died earlier this week? Frank was a much-loved Member of this House and the other place for many decades and was highly respected as a Labour Minister. He was a great internationalist and campaigner for peace and human rights and he will be sadly missed.

What does the Prime Minister think is the right thing to do if he receives a text message from a billionaire Conservative supporter asking him to fix tax rules?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I echo the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s remarks about Frank Judd.

In response to the right hon. and learned Gentleman’s question, if he is referring to the requests from James Dyson, I make absolutely no apology at all for shifting heaven and earth and doing everything I possibly could —as I think any Prime Minister would in those circumstances—to secure ventilators for the people of this country, to save lives and to roll out a ventilator-procurement process that the Labour-controlled Public Accounts Committee itself said was a benchmark for procurement

[Keir Starmer]

Let us be clear what the texts show. The Prime Minister was lobbied by a wealthy businessman and close friend for a change in the tax rules; the Prime Minister responded: “I will fix it”. Then, after a discussion with the Chancellor, whom everybody seems to be lobbying these days, the Prime Minister texted his friend to say, “it is fixed”. How many other people with the Prime Minister’s personal number has he given preferential treatment to?

[The Prime Minister]

I recall the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying at the time that we should do everything that we could to get more ventilators. Indeed, he congratulated the roll-out—he said well done to everybody involved in the ventilator challenge.

May I just remind the House of what we were facing in March last year? We had a new virus that was capable of killing people in ways that we did not understand. The only way to help them, in extremis, was to intubate them and put them on ventilation. We had 9,000 ventilators in this country; we secured 22,000 as a result of that ventilator challenge. I think it was entirely the right thing to do to work with all potential makers of ventilators at that time. And by the way, so does the former leader of the Labour party—a man to whom I think the right hon. and learned Gentleman should listen—Tony Blair.

[Keir Starmer]

I am surprised the Prime Minister brings up former leaders as it is his former leader—his friend Dave—who is at the heart of much of this.

I acknowledge that thousands of businesses stepped up during the pandemic. That was a good thing and we celebrate that. The difference is that they did not all have the chance to text the Prime Minister to ask him to fix the tax situation in exchange for doing so. That is the difference.

At the heart of this scandal are people’s jobs and wasted taxpayers’ money. Take, for example, the thousands of jobs at Liberty Steel that are on the line in Hartlepool, Rotherham and elsewhere following the collapse of Greensill Capital. The Prime Minister has not fixed that—in fact, he has done nothing to help steelworkers. Is it now quite literally one rule for those who have the Prime Minister’s phone number and another for everybody else?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. and learned Gentleman calls it a scandal; he voted for the changes that we brought in. He called our ventilator challenge an outstanding success and I think he was completely right. This is a Government who get on, deliver for people in distress and deliver on the people’s priorities.

Yes, of course I am concerned for the families of steelworkers up and down the country. That is why the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has been meeting the unions and the management of Liberty Steel repeatedly over the past few days. We believe in British steel. It was under the last Labour Government that jobs in steel fell by more than 50% and output fell by more than 50%. We now have a 5 million-tonne pipeline of British steel, with our massive infrastructure investments, and we intend to use our new freedoms under Brexit to make sure that procurement goes to British companies.

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister says, “We believe in British steel”. Well, do something. I have to say to him that steelworkers waking up this morning will find it deeply offensive to hear the Prime Minister boasting to his friends that he is the First Lord of the Treasury and can give them the backing they need. He will not give the steelworkers the backing that they need. This shows that, once again, favours, privileged access, and tax breaks for mates are the main currency of this Conservative Government. If that is not the case, if one of the 3 million self-employed people who have been excluded from Government support for over a year and now face bankruptcy texted the Prime Minister to ask for a tax break so that they could survive, would he change the rules for them, too?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government have supported the self-employed with more than £14 billion throughout the pandemic. That is part of a vast package of support for jobs and livelihoods across the country. We continue to do everything it takes. The right hon. and learned Gentleman should take back what he said about the ventilator challenge. He attacks the ventilator challenge—our efforts to get more ventilators at a very, very difficult time for this country—in the same way, by the way, in which he opportunistically attacked the Vaccine Taskforce at a critical moment, which he will recall. We take the tough decisions that are necessary to protect the people of this country and get things done.

[Keir Starmer]

If I had to correct the Prime Minister for everything that he gets wrong, I would be here all day. I take it that that is a no as an answer to the question in relation to the 3 million. There we have it: an open door for those with the Prime Minister’s number; a closed door to the 3 million. What this shows once again is the extent of the sleaze and cronyism that is at the heart of his Conservative Government. Let me try another way, Prime Minister. If an NHS nurse, who has been working on the frontline during the pandemic, had the Prime Minister’s phone number, would they get the pay rise that they so obviously deserve?

[The Prime Minister]

I am proud of what this Government have done to support the NHS throughout the pandemic with record investment of another £92 billion. To help nurses, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows, we put in, last year, the bursary of £5,000, plus the £3,000 on top to help with training and the costs of childcare; and in the past couple of years, a 12.8% increase on the starting salary. Above all, we are helping the profession by recruiting more nurses than ever before. There are already 50,000 more people in the NHS this year than there were last year, and 10,600 more nurses. That is what I would say to many of the nurses that I have talked to in the past few days and weeks, and we will continue to back them to the hilt.

[Keir Starmer]

If the Prime Minister had been talking to the NHS frontline he would know how insulted they are by his pay cut after everything they have put in over the past year. They did not get a text from the Prime Minister; they got a kick in the teeth. Mr Speaker, there is a pattern to this Government: the Prime Minister is fixing tax breaks for his friends; the Chancellor is pushing the Treasury to help Lex Greensill; the Health Secretary is meeting Greensill for drinks; and David Cameron is texting anybody who will reply. Every day, there are new allegations about this Conservative Government: dodgy personal protective equipment deals; tax breaks for their mates; and the Health Secretary owning shares in a company delivering NHS services. Sleaze, sleaze, sleaze, and it is all on his watch. With this scandal now firmly centred on him, how on earth does he expect people to believe that he is the person to clean this mess up?

[The Prime Minister]

I will tell the right hon. and learned Gentleman why this Government are doing the right thing at the right time. The difference between us and the Labour party is, I am afraid, staringly obvious. We get on with taking the tough decisions to protect the people of this country and to take our country forward, uniting and levelling up. We take the tough decisions to procure tens of thousands of ventilators in record time, which, apparently, he now opposes. We put forward tougher sentences for rapists and violent criminals, which he then opposes on a three-line Whip. We take tough decisions to stick up for the fans of our national game. While captain hindsight snipes continually from the sidelines, this Government get on with delivering on the people’s priorities.