Oral Answers to Questions

Keir Starmer Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Not only has the price of batteries fallen vertiginously, as has the cost of solar power, but I can tell my hon. Friend and the people of Thanet South that they have huge opportunities. The cost of wind power in this country has fallen by 70% just in the last 10 years. What I think the people of Thanet want to see, and I am sure my hon. Friend exemplifies it, is a spirit of Promethean technological optimism.

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

I want to ask the Prime Minister about the promise he made to the British people to

“guarantee that no one needing care has to sell their home to pay for it.”

Does that guarantee still stand?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Speaker]

I know the House has been away, but it is still Prime Minister’s questions.

[Keir Starmer]

I noticed that the Prime Minister did not stand by his guarantee that no one will need to sell their house to pay for care. Let me explain why he did not. Under the Prime Minister’s plan, someone with £186,000 including the value of their home—that is not untypical for constituents across the country—who is facing large costs because they have to go into care will have to pay £86,000. That is before living costs. Where does the Prime Minister think they are going to get that £86,000 without selling their home?

[The Prime Minister]

As I think everybody understood in the long statement yesterday, this is the first time that the state has come in to deal with the threat of these catastrophic costs, thereby enabling the private sector—the financial services industry—to supply the insurance products that people need to guarantee themselves against the cost of care. What we are doing is lifting the floor—lifting the guarantee—up to £100,000, whereby nobody has to pay anything, across the entire country. We still have to hear from the Opposition what they would do to fix the backlogs in the NHS and fix social care after decades of inertia and inactivity. What would the Leader of the Opposition do?

[Keir Starmer]

The Prime Minister’s plan is to impose an unfair tax on working people. My plan is to ensure—[Interruption.] My plan is to ensure that those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share. That is the difference. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I say to both sides that I need to hear the question. I also need to hear the answer. If there are some Members who do not want to hear it, I am sure that their constituents want to hear it. It is not good to shout down either side when they are either asking or answering a question. Please, our constituents are interested. I want to hear, and they will want to hear. Keir Starmer.

[Keir Starmer]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The Prime Minister’s plan is to impose unfair taxes on working people; my plan is to ensure those with the broadest shoulders pay their fair share. I know Conservative Members do not like that. The truth is that the Prime Minister’s plans do not do what he claims. People will still face huge bills. Many homeowners will need to sell their homes. He is not denying it, when he could have done. The Prime Minister has failed the only test he set for himself for social care. It was in the manifesto—another manifesto promise, Prime Minister.

[The Prime Minister]

indicated dissent.

[Keir Starmer]

It is no good shaking your head. And who is going to pay for the cost of this failure? Working people. Under the Prime Minister’s plan, a landlord renting out dozens of properties will not pay a penny more, but their tenants in work will face tax rises of hundreds of pounds a year. A care worker earning the minimum wage does not get a pay rise under this plan, but does get a tax rise. In what world is that fair?

[The Prime Minister]

Actually, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has confirmed that this is a broad-based and progressive measure. The top 20% of households by income will pay 40 times what the poorest 20% pay; the top 14% will pay half of the entire levy. The right hon. and learned Gentleman talks about his plan. Well, I have been scouring the records for evidence of the Labour plan, and I have found it. In 2018, the current shadow Minister for Social Care, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), joined forces with Nick Boles and Norman Lamb to promote a new dedicated health and social care tax based on national insurance. Where is she? I can’t see her in her place, Mr Speaker. She said that this was to be the country’s “Beveridge moment”. Is the Labour party really going to vote against the new Beveridge moment tonight?

[Keir Starmer]

Mr Speaker, let me tell you what an ambitious young Member for Henley said in 2002 in this House:

“national insurance increases are regressive”—[Official Report, 17 April 2002; Vol. 383, c. 667.]

I wonder what happened to him. If the Prime Minister is going ahead with this unfair tax, can he at least tell us this: will his plan clear the NHS waiting list backlog by the end of this Parliament—yes or no?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the whole House, indeed the whole country, can appreciate that we at least have a plan to fix the backlogs and we at least understand that the only way to fix the long-term underlying problems in the NHS and the problem of delayed discharges is to fix the crisis in social care as well, which Labour failed to address for decades. We are going ahead and doing it. What I have just understood from the right hon. and learned Gentleman—out of that minestrone of nonsense has floated a crouton of fact—is that he is going to vote against the measures tonight. They are going to vote against plans to fix the backlogs and to fix social care. Vote Labour, Mr Speaker, wait longer.

[Keir Starmer]

It was a yes/no question. You either clear the backlog or you don’t. The Prime Minister cannot even say that he will do that. So there we have it: working people will pay higher tax, those in need will still lose their homes to pay for care and he cannot even say if the NHS backlog will be cleared. [Interruption.] He gesticulates, but they are all breaking their manifesto promises and putting up taxes for their working constituents for this? Tax rises are not the only way he is making working people worse off. Some 2.5 million working families will face a doubly whammy: a national insurance tax rise and a £1,000 a year universal credit cut. They are getting hit from both sides. Of all the ways to raise public funds, why is the Prime Minister insisting on hammering working people?

[The Prime Minister]

We are proud of what we have been doing throughout the pandemic to look after working people. We are proud of the extra £9 billion we put in through universal credit. I think people in this House and across the country should know that Labour wants to scrap universal credit all together. We believe in higher wages and better skills, and it is working. That is why we are investing in 13,500 work coaches and £3,000 a year for 11 million adults across this country to train under the lifetime skills guarantee, and it is working. For the first time since 2019, after years and years of stagnation, wages are rising for the lower paid. Labour believes in welfare; we believe in higher wages and higher skills and better jobs.

[Keir Starmer]

Higher wages and higher skills, the Prime Minister says. How out of touch he is! [Interruption.] Conservative Members laugh. What do they say to Rosie, because Rosie is the sort of person that this impacts on? Laugh away. A single mother working on the minimum wage in a nursing home, she got in touch with me. She will lose £87 a month due to the universal credit cut—a huge amount to her. She will now also be hit with a national insurance tax rise. She has asked for more shifts and she cannot get them. She is unable to get further help with childcare. What does the Prime Minister—what does the laughter—say to Rosie?

This is a Government who underfunded the NHS for a decade before the pandemic, took £8 billion out of social care before the pandemic, and then wasted billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on dodgy contracts, vanity projects and giveaways to their mates. They cut stamp duty on second home owners, gave super tax deductions for the biggest companies and now they are telling millions of working people that they must cough up more tax. Is this not the same old Tory party, always putting their rich mates and donors before working people?

[The Prime Minister]

Very sadly, Mr Speaker, what you are hearing is the same old nonsense from Labour, because they want to scrap universal credit. I have every sympathy for Rosie and I admire her and families up and down the land, but the best thing we can do for them is have a strong and dynamic economy. As I speak, our economy is the fastest growing in the G7, because we have had the fastest vaccine roll-out and the fastest opening up of any comparable country. Never forget that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have kept us in the European Medicines Agency; he attacked the Vaccine Taskforce; and if we had listened to Captain Hindsight in July, we would not have the fastest growing economy in the G7—we would still be in lockdown. [Interruption.] It is true. If we listened to him today, we would not be trying to fix the NHS backlogs and we would not finally be dealing with social care. This is the Government who take the tough decisions to take this country forward.