Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Can I start by thanking the Prime Minister for the way that he responded to the murder of Ann Widdecombe last week? This is the first opportunity I have had on the Floor of the House to commemorate her life. A lot has been said about how she died. I want to focus on celebrating the life she lived.
Ann was a woman of high principle and profound beliefs, with a wicked sense of humour—a wonderful combination of being a serious person who did not take herself too seriously. She changed her faith from Anglican to Catholic and from the Conservative party to the Brexit party, but she always remained part of the Conservative family. You might not always have agreed with her, but Ann Widdecombe was a woman who said what she meant and meant what she said. Hers was an honesty that made our politics better. Her wit and forthrightness sat alongside a deep humanity and decency.
Ann had wonderful turns of phrase. She said:
“We need less political correctness and more political courage.”
She said:
“If we deny our culture, become nothing and everything, that weakens us.”
She also said:
“It is a truth universally unacknowledged at Westminster that there is life after politics.”
With that in mind, I turn to this Prime Minister’s final questions. Mr Speaker, I wanted to make sure that I got the tone right today, so I looked back at the Prime Minister’s final questions to Boris Johnson. Luckily for the Prime Minister, I plan to be much gentler than he was that day.
Week after week, the Prime Minister and I have clashed at these Dispatch Boxes and rarely agreed on anything, but there is one thing that I admired. When President Zelensky was attacked in the White House, the Prime Minister showed leadership and invited him to Downing Street. That was the right thing to do. Ukraine is on the frontline in the battle for freedom, so does the Prime Minister agree that cross-party support for their cause must endure?
The Prime Minister
I join the right hon. Lady in her tribute to Ann Widdecombe. I know that the hurt is keenly felt across all her friends and family, but it is particularly keenly felt by political colleagues in the Conservative party—her party for many years—and in Reform as well. That is why one of the first things I did on Friday was to phone the Leader of the Opposition and the leader and deputy leader of Reform to express my condolences and act in a cross-party manner, because I knew how much this would hurt them and many people in their parties. I thank them for taking that call in the spirit that they did last Friday.
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments about Ukraine. We have stood united on Ukraine in this House. We supported the last Government in the approach that they took, and we have taken that approach on. That meeting with President Zelensky happened the day after he was evicted from the Oval Office. He left alone. He got on a plane. We got him to come to London, and I asked him to come to Downing Street straightaway. I walked out to meet him. I gave him a hug, and then I showed him what was in the street. Many people had come, thinking that he was visiting Downing Street, and the moment he got out of the car and hugged me, they cheered at the top of their voices—the British people told President Zelensky exactly what they thought of him and the way he had been treated.
That was a really emotional moment, because it was effectively the first human contact that President Zelensky had had outside his immediate team since he left the Oval Office. I had a meeting with him to tell him that in this country, we will stand with him and Ukraine. I did not let him leave alone—I walked him out to his car—because in Britain we do not let people walk out of our buildings alone; we escort them out.
Mrs Badenoch
I thank the Prime Minister for that answer. No doubt, he will be disappointed that he will not be emulating his hero Harold Wilson in winning multiple elections. However, we all hope that he may be about to emulate him in another way: by being the Prime Minister when England win the world cup. That is something that every single one of us in the House should get behind—especially the SNP. [Laughter.]
As Leader of the Opposition, the Prime Minister led his party to a landslide after a historic defeat—I fully intend to do the same—but if you want to lead this country, you should set out your plans to do so. We have, but one politician intends to spend the summer avoiding scrutiny, refusing to set out his plans. Does the Prime Minister not agree that what the country deserves is a televised debate between Nigel Farage and Count Binface?
Hon. Members
The Prime Minister
Well, Reform intends to spend the summer arguing with a bin. My advice to everyone is: put your vote in the Bin! [Laughter.]
I am delighted that today we are joined in the Gallery by some of the people I have met across the country in opposition and in power. These are the people who are in my mind’s eye—people like Trevor and Luis, who have worked together at Jaguar Land Rover for over 30 years. I visited them just before we got the deal with America, when tariffs were threatened. That day, I faced the entire workforce, who were very concerned that they were going to lose their jobs because the tariffs would be impossible for JLR.
We went back when we had got the deal, and I took the call from President Trump at JLR in Solihull so that the workforce could hear the deal being made and know exactly what it meant for them. The only mistake I made was putting it on loudspeaker, which of course is always a slightly unpredictable thing to do when President Trump is on the other end. Luckily, he agreed the deal and the cheer went out. These people across the Galleries, here with us today, are always in my mind’s eye.
Mrs Badenoch
I know how much the Prime Minister has come to enjoy our exchanges—in fact, in the King’s Speech debate he told me that on difficult days my input was
“always a ray of sunshine.”—[Official Report, 13 May 2026; Vol. 786, c. 24.]
He might not have answered many of the questions I asked him, but at least he turned up. It is important to respect Parliament, so does the Prime Minister agree that his successor should come to this place and answer questions rather than scurrying away for the summer?
The Prime Minister
As Prime Minister, I have participated in over 60 sessions of PMQs—always a pleasure and always something to look forward to—and I have answered, or at least given answers, 2,800 times. [Laughter.] I am sure that the Leader of the Opposition will question my successor in the same way.
I am sure the Leader of the Opposition will forgive me if I just mention one or two others who are in the Gallery who have been affected by the decisions we have made. Billie, who is sitting in the Gallery in front of me, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023. She was there when we launched our plan for change and has been a tireless advocate for better cancer care. Billie joins us today from the special needs school where she works in London, and I am pleased to tell the House that Billie’s cancer is in remission.
Mrs Badenoch
I thank the Prime Minister for that answer and for paying tribute to so many of the people he has been able to help. In fact, I remember when I started this job, the Prime Minister was very helpful to me, saying that I would not last the year. Life comes at you fast. [Laughter.] He spent a long time laughing at how I had lost control of my party; I think he should have been paying attention to his Back Benchers instead of mine. Everyone in politics would do well to remember how quickly political fortunes can change. I know that the Prime Minister has been asked and that he is being diplomatic, but on that note, does he have any advice for his successor?
The Prime Minister
I will give my wholehearted support to my successor. I want this Labour Government to be a success. I want our country to be a success. I shall give my support privately if asked for, not publicly when not asked for. [Laughter.]
I draw attention to Pooja, who is with us in the Gallery with her daughter. I first met Pooja in a café at the back of Euston station where she told me about her son Ronan, who was murdered when he was 16, having just done his GCSEs. I have to say that as a father of two teenagers, I found that very hard to hear. His killer, who was also a teenager, collected a ninja sword and a machete from his local post office. He had bought them online using a parent’s credit card and a fake name, with no ID checks. When I heard that, I said to Pooja that I would campaign with her to get the law changed, and I made a commitment and a promise to her. That is why we passed Ronan’s law, driven by Pooja’s inspirational campaign. I take the opportunity to thank her for that.
Mrs Badenoch
That is a lovely statement that the Prime Minister has just made to Pooja; I am sure that the whole House will agree. I think that the whole House will also agree that he gave a very diplomatic answer to the question I asked on advice to his successor.
Having heard that answer, I say this to Labour MPs with as much goodwill as I can muster—[Laughter.]—we have been where you are. Changing Prime Minister is not a silver bullet; indeed, it may be that the Labour party’s troubles are only just beginning. Solving the fundamental problems in this country will require difficult decisions, and you also need to know how to get things done. The Prime Minister once said that when he pulled the levers, nothing happened. Why did he think that was?
The Prime Minister
We did pull the levers. We pulled the levers to stabilise the economy, and we have done that. We pulled the levers to strengthen our public services and NHS waiting lists are coming down at the fastest rate for 17 years. We have pulled a big lever on child poverty, and this Government are doing more on child poverty than any Government ever, including previous Labour Governments. We have put the biggest investment into defence and security, and our international standing has been restored.
We also pulled the lever on the individual cases that matter, including those of individuals such as Carla—she is in the Gallery—who is one of the parents who came to see me about online harm and what that can do to our young children. That is why we banned social media for under-16s. Daniel, who is also here with his son, has spoken to me many times about the struggles that he has had with the cost of living and the need for a safe and secure home for every family and every child to grow up in. They are the people who matter more to me than anything else, because it is their lives that I think about when we make decisions in this Government.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister may not think so now, but it is a tribute to him that not a single sitting Labour MP could beat him. Not the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner) who could not count her taxes, not the right hon. Member for Sheffield Heeley (Louise Haigh) who could not count how many phones she had lost—“lost, lost, lost”—and definitely not the right hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) who could not count to 81.
This is my last exchange with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. I know how much his wife and children mean to him, and that they are in the Gallery. As everyone here knows, our families make a huge sacrifice for our choice to enter public life. I hope that he will allow me to draw our time together to a close by thanking them for the love and support they have given him throughout his time in office.
The Prime Minister
I thank the right hon. Lady very much for that. This is the last question I will face from the Leader of the Opposition, so let me wish her and her family well. We have had robust exchanges across this Dispatch Box, but she has extended kindness to me privately at very difficult times, including when there was an attempt to burn down our family home, which deeply affected my family. She reached out to me then, and when my brother died of cancer she reached out to me privately, not across this Dispatch Box. I thank her for that and for the tribute that she just made to my wife and children, who mean the world to me. I do thank her for that. She knows that this is robust, and it has to be robust—that is the way politics is done—but the kindnesses that sit behind it privately are often just as powerful, if not more powerful, and I thank her for that.
I also stood at the Opposition Dispatch Box, for four years as Leader of the Opposition. I know at first hand that it is the most difficult job in politics, and that is what the right hon. Lady is doing. When I did it, we had just lost the 2019 election, which nearly broke my party. It was the worst result since 1935, and we were found to be institutionally antisemitic. I picked up our party. I turned it round. I made a promise to rip antisemitism out of my party, and I did. I turned my party to face the country and Labour won a landslide general election. After two years, we have stabilised the economy. We have invested heavily in our public services. We have put better protections in for children, particularly on child poverty. We have strengthened our defence and we have enhanced our international reputation. I am proud to leave this country in a better shape than I found it.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(4 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Can I associate myself and those on the Opposition Benches with the Prime Minister’s comments about Venezuela, and also about the Lib Dems? [Laughter.] But seriously, the Chief of the Defence Staff made it known that the armed forces needed a minimum of £28 billion more to defend the country. Can the Prime Minister tell us why he thinks half that amount is enough?
The Prime Minister
I am proud that this Labour Government have delivered two major funding increases in just two years in government. The first, which was funded by overseas aid, took us to £270 billion over the spending review period. That is a record. The defence investment plan gives us the capability we need for the future and sets a new record of £300 billion over the next four years. That will be invested in drones and autonomous weapons—the largest ever investment—strengthen the UK’s nuclear capability, upgrade our naval bases in the most significant way for 45 years, and confirm our commitment to the next generation of fighter jets. That is what is needed to keep our country safe.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister did not say that it was enough, and that was a very long list of things that he is not yet paying for. It is not right and it is not fair—certainly not to our troops, who put their lives on the line for all of us every single day. Three weeks ago, the Defence Secretary, the right hon. Member for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough (John Healey), resigned saying,
“I am being forced to make decisions that would…increase the risk to personnel on operations, and could make the country less safe.”
Since that letter, the Prime Minister has increased spending by only 0.01%. We can count, the generals can count, and the Kremlin can count, and his plan does not add up. How can he possibly stand there and say that this is enough?
The Prime Minister
This is the most significant upgrade in defence spending since the 1980s. The Chief of the Defence Staff has been clear that the plan accelerates the transformation we need for our armed forces. The First Sea Lord said that it funds the capability we need to fight and win, and the Chief of the Air Staff said that it strengthens our contribution to NATO. The Leader of the Opposition must have missed that yesterday, the Secretary-General of NATO welcomed the plan. Those are all people who know what is in the plan and welcome it.
We can contrast that with the Conservatives’ record in government. They hollowed out the armed forces. Their record is cutting defence spending; my record is raising it to £300 billion and rising. Their record is cutting frigates by a quarter, cutting minehunters by a half and leaving 47 out of 49 defence programmes delayed or over budget; my record is the biggest boost to defence investment since the 1980s. Their record is missing Army recruitment targets every year for 14 years. We have given our armed forces the biggest pay rise for 20 years and increased defence funding by £15 billion a year. That is a record I am proud to stand on.
Mrs Badenoch
The Chief of the Defence Staff is an honourable man, and what he and the NATO Secretary-General have done is welcome the fact that the plan has been published—just that it has been published. They have been waiting for more than a year. The strategic defence review was last year. The Chief of the Defence Staff is an honourable man who is having to make do with very little.
The threat level has dramatically changed in the two years that the Prime Minister has been in office. Since he took office, Poland has increased its funding to 4.8% and Germany has increased its funding to 3.7%. This year, Russia will spend 10% of GDP on defence. Meanwhile, Britain is spending it all on welfare. Even the limited plan that the Prime Minister has announced has completely unravelled, because he has not found the money to pay for it. It is £5 billion short. We all know that he is leaving this mess to his successor. Can he confirm that the right hon. Member for Makerfield (Andy Burnham) has agreed to fund the shortfall?
The Prime Minister
What the Conservatives did was cut defence spending. When they came to power, defence spending was 2.5%. What did they do? They cut it to 2.3%—a cut! On welfare, what did they do? They put it up by £88 billion. So we will take no lectures from them about either welfare or defence.
This is £15 billion of new investment for defence, delivered outside a Budget and outside a spending review. That is about £1 billion a year over four years. Because of the decisions at the last Budget, we have had headroom of £22 billion. That is precisely so that we can take decisions like this. We delivered it outside a Budget and outside a spending review, just as we did with special educational needs, outside a Budget and outside a spending review, and just as the last Government did when they announced their five-year NHS plan in 2018, outside a Budget and outside a spending review. And what did they say when they were challenged about it?
“We will be able to explain exactly where every penny is coming from but we will do that in the Budget.”
That was the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Sir Jeremy Hunt), then the Health Secretary and later the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
When the Conservatives published their integrated defence review in 2020, what did they do? They set out the funding at the next spending review. So let us drop the faux outrage and focus on what matters: the biggest sustained increase for 40 years and the biggest increase for 45 years, providing what is needed to keep the country safe.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister says that he is delivering this outside the Budget. That is right: it should have been in the last Budget. The strategic defence review was published last year. It should have been in the last Budget, not the next Budget. According to the intelligence assessment that the Prime Minister himself has said we have, there could be an attack on NATO by 2030, but this plan does not deliver until after that. Not only is £5 billion missing from his plan, but it relies on £11 billion of unidentified savings.
The plan has unravelled. It is a total dereliction of duty, and I am not the only one who thinks so. The Times said today that the Prime Minister’s “legacy”—[Interruption.] Well, why don’t we wait and see what The Times said? It said that the Prime Minister’s
“legacy is betrayal, failure and vulnerability”
—and that is one of the nicer headlines.
I will ask again, because the Prime Minister did not answer the question. Did the right hon. Member for Makerfield know that he was going to have to find £5 billion for the Prime Minister’s plan?
The Prime Minister
When I became Prime Minister two years ago, this country spent £54 billion a year on defence. Because of the decisions we have taken, that will rise to £80 billion a year by 2029. That is a real-terms increase of 27%, transforming our armed forces. We are not going to take any lectures from the Conservatives. They cut defence spending. They hollowed out the armed forces. That is what their Defence Secretary admitted they did. [Interruption.] They do not like it. They will not defend their record, because they cannot. They will not apologise for it, because that would be to admit what we all know: it is a total failure. They just try to pretend that the 14 years during which they were in power never really happened. We are in power. We have record investment in defence and security. I am proud of this Labour Government, and any Labour Prime Minister would stand behind this plan.
Mrs Badenoch
It does not sound as if the Prime Minister has told the right hon. Member for Makerfield to find £5 billion. He says that any Labour Prime Minister would stand behind this plan. Let me tell him what Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, said yesterday. He said that the Prime Minister had chosen the “cheap option”, and he called the plan “woefully inadequate”. Let me tell him what General Sir Richard Barrons, one of the authors of his own strategic defence review, said yesterday:
“we are simply not going to be ready to defend this country properly.”
That is what they are saying.
The reason the Prime Minister is in this mess is that he was too weak to cut welfare when he had the chance. There are only three ways to find the missing £5 billion: increase borrowing, increase taxes, or cut welfare. Which one will the Prime Minister recommend to the right hon. Member for Makerfield?
The Prime Minister
We are talking about £1 billion a year over four years. The decisions at the last Budget gave us more than £22 billion in headroom, so we can take the decisions the country—[Interruption.] The Conservatives do not understand this, because they crashed the economy. We built a headroom of £22 billion. The very reason for the headroom is so that we have the credibility to take decisions outside the Budget and outside the spending review. The Conservatives do not understand it because they lost control of the public finances. In addition to doing more for defence and security, we have taken control of the public finances. That is why we have headroom to take credible decisions like this. We have £1 billion a year over four years and headroom of £22 billion because of the decisions that we took in the last Budget, which allow us to take these decisions.
Mrs Badenoch
We understand it perfectly, and that is why—[Interruption.] Yes, we do. That is why the Prime Minister is leaving and so is his Chancellor. Labour Members are laughing and pretending, but if he was doing such a fabulous job, why did he resign?
Defence of the realm is the first duty of Government. [Interruption.] Yes, it is the first duty of Government. I do not need to read again what General Sir Richard Barrons or Lord Richard Dannatt said. Maybe Labour Members did not hear it the first time—they can rewatch the clips—but defence of the realm is the first duty of Government. Britain is facing a moment of danger unlike anything in our lifetimes and unlike anything that we saw in government. We need a plan to fund our armed forces that meets this moment. They are the Government for now, not for 10 years ago, and the fact is that Labour’s plan is too weak, it is too little and it is too late. If the Prime Minister’s successor does not want to be complicit in this failure, he should come out and condemn this plan. The money must be found, and that money should come from cutting welfare—something that these Labour MPs will not do. If Labour cannot defend our country, what is the point of them?
The Prime Minister
It is just all talk. What did the Conservatives actually do? They cut defence, from 2.5% to 2.3%, in their 14 long years. And what did they do on welfare? They put the bill up by £88 billion, so we will take no lectures from them. They failed in the first duty of Government, and they will not defend their record, will they? Never do they stand here and defend their record, because they cannot—14 years of failure. They do not get up and apologise, which is what they should do, because they would have to admit what we all know—how much they failed—so they just sit there pretending it did not happen. Well, it did happen. You hollowed out the armed forces; we are correcting that now.
I will tell you what else. When we came into power, public services were on their knees. Today we have seen the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years. When I became Prime Minister, we inherited a broken economy. Today we are outperforming the other G7 economies. When I became Prime Minister, our international alliances had been shredded. Now other countries are looking to us to lead on defence and security—foundations of a stronger and fairer country. Britain is in a better state than we found it. That is the difference a Labour Government make.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I associate the Opposition with the Prime Minister’s remarks on the horrific train crash, the attacks in Edinburgh and, of course, Armed Forces Week.
I want to start by congratulating the Prime Minister: he is the other party leader who won a by-election last week, although I think I am much happier with my new MP than he is with his. Two weeks ago, the Prime Minister told the House that the Government were funding defence and that everything was under control. The very next day, the Defence Secretary resigned, saying the Prime Minister was “unable” and the Treasury “unwilling” to fund the defence of our country. What changed?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady references the by-election—I am very pleased with our new Member of Parliament. In Gorton and Denton, the Tories got 1.9% of the vote. I congratulate her because they got 2.2% of the vote in Makerfield, just edging past Count Binface. She says they are winning everywhere. At that rate, it will take them 500 years to get back into power. Meanwhile, back on the Government Benches, we have delivered the biggest sustained boost to defence spending since the 1980s—£270 billion over this Parliament. That is a record. The defence investment plan will take that even higher. That is about facing the future. We will finalise the plan with the Defence Secretary, and we will have it published before the NATO summit.
Mrs Badenoch
I think the Prime Minister forgot to mention that we got 50% of the vote in Aberdeen South. He says that he is funding defence; the truth is he would not be in this mess if his Chancellor had found money for the defence investment plan. The Prime Minister gave her the second most important job in Britain. She was the first female Chancellor. She lives next door to him, but would not even come out to stand by him during his resignation speech; she was too busy getting ready for a selfie with the new leader. Does the Prime Minister feel let down by his Chancellor?
The Prime Minister
This is the Chancellor who ended the austerity inflicted on our country for 14 long years. This is the Chancellor who got the economy growing. The Leader of the Opposition does not normally want to talk about the economy. That is because in the first quarter of this year, the UK had the fastest growing economy in the G7. Our growth was upgraded by the International Monetary Fund and the OECD. Last week, unemployment was down and inflation better. That is because with this Chancellor, we have the right economic plan and can weather the global storms of the war that the right hon. Lady wanted to jump into. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”]
Mrs Badenoch
Labour Members are cheering so loudly, but if it is all going so fine, why is the Prime Minister resigning? The fact is the Chancellor did let him down. She is the one who snatched the winter fuel payment and who announced a disastrous Budget that killed economic growth. Because of her, a Labour Prime Minister is once again leaving office with unemployment higher than when he came in.
But the Chancellor is not the only person who let him down: the Energy Secretary is putting up bills and killing jobs. [Hon. Members: “Where is he?”] He is not here, is he? He was a failed Labour leader rejected by the electorate, brought back from the wilderness by this man, and when the going got tough, he jumped into bed with the Mayor of Manchester—it is not the first time he has betrayed someone close to him, is it? Does the Prime Minister think that this treachery should be rewarded by being appointed Chancellor?
The Prime Minister
The Chancellor and I picked up our party six years ago from the worst defeat since 1935. We turned the party around and made it face the country, and we won a landslide general election, giving the Conservatives the biggest drubbing in their history. Thanks to this Chancellor, we have delivered the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years, with new rights for renters and money for working people, and we are lifting half a million children out of poverty. The test for every Prime Minister is handing over the country in a better shape than they found it. I know I can do that, which is more than can be said for the right hon. Lady’s predecessor, her predecessor’s predecessor and her predecessor’s predecessor’s predecessor!
Mrs Badenoch
Once again I have to ask: if it is all so fantastic, why is the Prime Minister resigning? It is very generous of him to stick by his Ministers, because they did not stick by him. He can say what he likes, but the people of Aberdeen gave their verdict—they gave their verdict on his Energy Secretary by voting Conservative.
To be fair, the Cabinet are not all traitors and deserters; some of them have been loyal—loyal and incompetent. Hands up if you think that the Education Secretary is doing a good job—[Interruption.] Even she doesn’t think she’s doing a good job, Mr Speaker—[Interruption.] Oh, someone did. For those who raised their hands—the two people who raised their hands—yesterday, a poll found that 0% of teachers think that the Education Secretary is doing a good job. She taxed private schools to pay for more teachers, but the number of teachers has gone down. It turns out that appointing a spiteful class warrior as Education Secretary was a disaster. Does the Prime Minister agree that he has been let down by her incompetence?
The Prime Minister
The Education Secretary grew up in poverty. She knows exactly what it means to grow up in poverty. She was once reluctant to tell her story, but I know her story and it is an incredible story of social mobility and success. I am so proud that she is sitting there, as should be everybody in this country who cares about social mobility. She knows that education is absolutely vital for poor children, and that is why it drives every single priority and value that she has. I would have thought that Conservatives would recognise and understand some of that, but they have fallen so low that they don’t.
Mrs Badenoch
The fact is that if the Education Secretary knew so much about poor children, she would not have given them fewer teachers. Teacher numbers have gone down—[Interruption.] It is amazing; I have never seen this much excitement on the Labour Benches. They are cheering so loudly, while there are 400 knives stuck in the Prime Minister’s back. Shame on them. They don’t like it up them, but they know that what I am saying is true.
There were times when the Prime Minister tried to do the right thing. He tried—he did try to cut welfare, and who stopped him? Those MPs behind him. In the words of the Welfare Secretary, his MPs only want to know who they can tax to fund more benefits. They are not Labour MPs, they are welfare MPs. Does the Prime Minister feel betrayed by the people he got into Parliament?
Mr Speaker
Order. We should think about the language we are using. When we leave this Chamber, do not be surprised if constituents feel that they can use the same language against each other. Let us show a little bit more decorum and respect to each other.
The Prime Minister
Thank you Mr Speaker. I was trying to do all this with as much good grace as I could, but I shall certainly miss these exchanges. I am very proud of every one of our MPs who, with a landslide Labour victory, come from all different backgrounds and different places across the country. We inflicted the biggest loss on the Tories in the history of their party. We have picked up our party and we turned it around. We had to address what went wrong, we turned it around, and we won a landslide victory. The right hon. Lady will not address or even talk about their failure after 14 long years.
Mrs Badenoch
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is the one who is resigning because of his MPs. There is no point trying to distract from that. Let’s be honest: the Prime Minister has made many mistakes, otherwise he would not be going, but he has also been let down—I am only saying what his staff have been briefing. He has been let down by an Energy Secretary who is killing industry, let down by a Chancellor who is killing jobs, and let down by Back-Benchers who do not understand that government is about tough choices. He U-turned again and again and again to appease them, and now they have abandoned him. And for what? A pair of eyelashes and a black T-shirt. Is it not the truth that, whoever is in charge, the real problem is the Labour party?
The Prime Minister
Two years ago, I walked into No. 10 and found a broken economy, broken public services and broken trust in politics. Because of our decisions—my decisions—the country is moving in the right direction: a stronger and fairer Britain, ending austerity, investing in our public services, the fastest fall in NHS waiting lists for 17 years, more rights for workers, more rights for renters, standing with Ukraine, Britain’s reputation restored, and half a million children being lifted out of poverty. Change promised by a Labour Government, change fought for by a Labour Government, change delivered by a Labour Government.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(1 month, 2 weeks ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I, too, wish England and Scotland the very best in the world cup. I wish you a very happy birthday, Mr Speaker—many happy returns. May I take the opportunity to associate myself with the remarks that the Prime Minister made about the helicopter crash? Our condolences go to their families, and to the family of Michael Storey.
I thank the Prime Minister for his short statement on Belfast. The scenes in Belfast are deeply, deeply disturbing. A man is in hospital after a brutal attack and now families are frightened after a night of violence. There is a live criminal case, so we must be careful about what we say, but we can be clear about this: people have a right to be angry—I am angry—and people have the right to expect their politicians to secure our borders, but no one has a right to burn families out of their homes or to burn public property and attack the police. We all have a duty to stand up for public safety in every way.
Last night, America carried out strikes on Iran in response to the downing of a US helicopter. This comes just days after renewed attacks on Ukraine. The world is getting more dangerous and the British public want to know that this Government are doing everything they can to protect our national security. Can the Prime Minister tell the House, will the full defence investment plan finally be published this week?
The Prime Minister
I agree with the Leader of the Opposition that in relation to both Iran and Ukraine, we are facing a more volatile world than at any time during our lifetimes. So far as defence is concerned, we have already taken a number of measures. We have increased defence spending from 2.3% to 2.6% in 2027. That is spending of £270 billion over this Parliament. We have carried out a strategic review of defence and we are committed to publishing the defence investment plan before the NATO summit, which is in just a few weeks’ time.
Mrs Badenoch
That sounded like a no. We have wasted two years waiting for the defence investment plan. Projects have been put on hold and Britain is getting weaker with every passing day. It has been reported that the Chief of the Defence Staff told the Prime Minister that the Ministry of Defence needs an extra £28 billion. Will that requirement be met in full?
The Prime Minister
We will set out the defence investment plan. It is a 10-year plan and it is the first line-by-line review of defence budgets in 18 years. The right hon. Lady is wrong to say that it has been delayed by two years. The defence strategic review was published a year ago and we have been working through the details to make sure that we get this right.
We are the Government who increased defence spending from 2.3% to 2.6%. I remind the Conservatives that when they came into power, defence spending was 2.5% and they took it down to 2.3%. We have taken it up to 2.6% by 2027. The defence investment plan will be published before the NATO summit. We have already signed 1,400 major defence contracts, and 94% of those are with British businesses. As the Defence Secretary said, that includes helicopters made in Yeovil, drones made in Swindon and armoured vehicles made in Telford. We have also given our armed forces the biggest pay rise in over 20 years. That is Labour making investment to safeguard our national security.
Mrs Badenoch
I welcome the pay rise for the armed forces. The Prime Minister says he has increased defence spending, but he has not. This year he is cutting it by £3.5 billion. What he is talking about are hopeful increases, and we do not know if he will make them because there is still no defence investment plan. At a time when we need leadership, we have total paralysis. It is reported that the Chancellor is only willing to find £13 billion for the DIP. At the London defence conference last year, the Prime Minister said that defence would be the “central organising principle” of his Government. How can that be the case when he is giving the armed forces less than half of the minimum that they need?
The Prime Minister
We have already increased defence spending. We will spend £270 billion in this Parliament. What did the Conservatives do on defence spending? They took it from 2.5% and cut it to 2.3%. We will take no lectures from them. They sat at the heart of a Government that failed our armed services. They cut frigates and destroyers by 25%. They cut minehunters by 50%. They cut the Army from 100,000 down to 72,000. They missed Army recruitment targets every single year for 14 years, and they left morale in the armed forces at an all-time low, so we will take no lectures from them on the defence and security of our country.
Mrs Badenoch
We have heard the Prime Minister say that about 100 times. There is still no defence investment plan. He is the Prime Minister now—at least I think he is. Should I be calling Andy Burnham instead to ask these questions? He is the Prime Minister, and the reason he is dithering is because he does not know where the money is coming from. The military is waiting and the bond markets are watching. He has only three options: cutting spending, more borrowing, or higher taxes. We know that the Chancellor wants to put up tax to pay for defence. Will the Prime Minister rule out raising taxes?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady asks the House to simply ignore the last 14 years, saying, “We may have failed the armed forces and hollowed them out, but please just forget all that and act as if it didn’t happen.” Well, we cannot forget all that, given the damage the Conservatives did to our armed services. She says, “Forget all that,” but I remind the House that when they left office, 47 out of 49 major defence contracts were delayed or over budget. That is what we are fixing. We cannot just scrub it away and forget. I know that the Conservatives want to forget their last 14 years in power. So do the British public—that’s why they are sitting on the Opposition Benches. We have increased defence spending, and we are going to publish the defence investment plan. That will be done before the NATO summit that is coming up in just a few weeks’ time.
Mrs Badenoch
I remember when the last Government led Europe when we were fighting the war in Ukraine. When Russia invaded, we were ready. We supplied Ukraine with munitions. We increased defence spending. But I was not asking the Prime Minister about our record; I asked him if he would rule out tax rises. He did not rule out raising taxes, so tax rises are coming. He cannot borrow more, because the markets have no confidence in him. The Prime Minister is in this mess because he maxed out on spending in his first two Budgets. That is why the benefits bill is set to rise to over £200 billion by the end of the decade. He has things the wrong way round: he has a benefits plan until 2031, but no defence investment plan. Why not just cut welfare?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady talks about leading the way on Ukraine. I did, and do, pay tribute to what the last Government did on Ukraine, and we stood with them. We continue to lead the way. It is the United Kingdom and France that are leading the coalition of the willing that have got the military plans together for security guarantees in Ukraine. Equally, on Iran, it is the UK and French Governments that have put together the military plans for the coalition for reassurance as soon as the strait of Hormuz is open. That is what we are doing to lead. We are not going to take lectures on defence from the Opposition after what they did to the armed forces, and neither are we going to take lectures on the economy, which they crashed and we have had to pick up.
Mrs Badenoch
At a time of increased global instability and tension, with war in Europe and the middle east, the Prime Minister is paralysed, giving the armed forces less than half of the minimum that they need. Tony Blair says to cut welfare for defence. Lord Robertson, a former NATO Secretary-General—and also one of them—says to cut welfare for defence. We all know why he will not cut welfare. It is because he is too weak—too weak to make a decision, too weak to face down his Back Benchers and cut benefits, and too weak to stand up for our national security. As the sun sets on his premiership, he is scrabbling around for a legacy, but is it not the case that his real legacy will be a bloated welfare state and weaker armed forces?
The Prime Minister
When the Conservatives were in office, they did not reform welfare spending or invest in our armed services. The right hon. Lady sets out that choice, but, on their watch, defence spending went down and welfare spending went up—£88 billion overall, with £33 billion alone under the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride). The Conservatives neither reformed welfare nor spent on our armed forces.
Every week, the right hon. Lady reminds us why the British public sent them packing. She ignores the fact that we are turning the country around: growth is up, but she does not want to talk about that; interest rates are down, but she does not want to talk about that either; immigration is down, after she cheerleaded for it to go up, and NHS waiting lists have come down at the fastest rate in 17 years. I am going to keep fighting for the people who elected a Labour Government and sent us here two years ago—people who want to live in a safer world, parents who want a better future for their children and young people growing up in poverty who deserve a better future. [Interruption.] We are investing in this great nation and standing up against those who divide us for a stronger, fairer Britain.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I echo the Prime Minister’s words on Lance Corporal James Freeman and about the Royal Navy helicopter crash in Devon. I also send my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Henry Nowak. The circumstances around Henry’s wrongful arrest and tragic murder must be a wake-up call to the entire country and our institutions that every life matters, and it is the responsibility of everyone in this House to bring people together, not divide them.
Mr Speaker, with your permission, I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Sir Alan Haselhurst—Lord Haselhurst—who died on Monday. Sir Alan served Parliament for over 50 years, eight of them in the Lords and 40 years as my predecessor as MP for Saffron Walden, while from 1970 to 1974 he was the Member of Parliament for Middleton and Prestwich. He was respected on all sides of this House, and was elected multiple times as your predecessor as Deputy Speaker, before he concluded in the other place.
Apart from serving his constituents, Sir Alan’s greatest passion in Parliament and perhaps in life was cricket, as you said, Mr Speaker. He was chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on cricket, a role which he encouraged me to take up and which I graciously declined, telling him I knew absolutely nothing about cricket. However, I think colleagues should know that Sir Alan’s intense lobbying is the reason that Sky Sports can be found on the parliamentary TV network. There is so much to say, but just to let everyone know, he was a good and kind man and he will be very much missed. My thoughts are with his wife Angela, his children Mark, David and Emma, and his grandchildren.
May I ask the Prime Minister by how much the welfare bill has risen since he came to office?
The Prime Minister
May I first thank the Leader of the Opposition for her approach and tone in relation to the tragic Henry Nowak case?
On welfare, as she knows, we inherited from the Conservative party a broken system, which we are now improving: delivering a youth guarantee; rolling out 300,000 work experience placements; and commissioning Alan Milburn’s review into youth unemployment. They are the steps we are taking. As she will know, the number on welfare went up hugely on the Conservatives’ watch, as did the cost under the shadow Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Sir Mel Stride).
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister does not seem to know the answer, so let me tell him: benefits alone have risen by £20 billion since he came to office. The Prime Minister has promised welfare reforms—we heard him say it just now—so why was there no welfare reform Bill in the King’s Speech?
The Prime Minister
Welfare reform is balancing universal credit so that it no longer pushes people away from work. That is what we are doing; the Opposition voted against it. Welfare reform is introducing a right to try, to incentivise people to take up opportunities. That is what we are doing; they voted against it. Welfare reform is providing record funding on apprenticeships. That is what we are doing; apprenticeship starts fell by 40% on their watch. The right hon. Lady talks about the welfare bill. It soared by £88 billion on their watch. Nearly 3 million people were written off. Face-to-face assessments collapsed because of the contracts they agreed. And who signed off those contracts? The shadow Chancellor.
Mrs Badenoch
We need to bring down the benefits bill. The Prime Minister complains about the shadow Chancellor. The bill went up because of the pandemic and even then Labour Members were asking us to spend more. It is not the shadow Chancellor who is the problem; it is the actual Chancellor. She is not even in her place. The reason there is no welfare Bill is the Prime Minister has given up, and he has given up because Labour Members have given up on him. On Sunday, the Welfare Secretary was asked 12 times on national radio if he would make cuts to the benefits bill and 12 times he could not answer. So I will ask the Prime Minister: is he going to cut the benefits bill?
The Prime Minister
All our welfare reform measures, and all our measures to get young people into work, are to reduce the cost and numbers of people who are unemployed. That is why we have introduced the youth guarantee so that young people can have help into work. If, after 18 months, they have not got a job, they can then be given a job for six months supported, which we know is the best way to ensure they succeed. That is the change we are making, but the Conservatives introduced the system that is broken. We are reforming it. Did they vote to reform it with us? No, they voted to keep the broken system.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister keeps saying he is bringing in welfare reforms. None of those things is going to cut the bill. Even his own Timms review explicitly says—this is their review; this is in the terms of reference—that this is not about generating proposals for further savings. The Prime Minister had a chance to cut benefits. Last year, I remember the Government were planning to cut benefits and on the Floor of the House they U-turned. What did he do when he had a chance? He caved. He caved to all the MPs behind him who do not want benefits brought down. That is why they are sitting silently behind him. Does the Prime Minister agree with his Welfare Secretary that that was the moment he lost his authority?
The Prime Minister
I am proud of what we are delivering on this side of the House. The fastest growing economy in the G7—they said it could not be done. Despite the war in the middle east, the OECD forecasts that UK growth is up and inflation is down. Net migration, which reached nearly a million under the Conservatives—the Leader of the Opposition was the cheerleader—is down by a staggering 82%. The asylum backlog is down by 46%. We are delivering the fastest reduction in waiting times in the history of the NHS. That is on top of free school meals, free breakfast clubs and free childcare—and, of course, we are lifting half a million children out of poverty. I am very proud of the work of this Labour Government.
Mrs Badenoch
He says he is proud of what they are delivering—I am glad to see that the Prime Minister still has his sense of humour, given we all know that he is losing his job soon. He has no authority, and we know why: his MPs will not let him do anything. The Welfare Secretary said in private what the Government will not dare say in public. He said:
“Every meeting I have is: ‘Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?’”
Last week, Tony Blair said:
“If the Conservative Party repeats its offer of working together on welfare, Labour should accept”.
Today I am repeating that offer to the Prime Minister. Is he ready yet?
The Prime Minister
They introduced a system that is broken, they put the bill through the roof, and now they want to give us advice on welfare—no thanks! The question should always be not what benefits people are entitled to, but what help we can give people to change their lives. That is what the Work and Pensions Secretary was arguing, and he is right about that. It is a Labour Government that are helping people into work. Leader of the Opposition asks what we have done: more rights for renters, stopping unfair rent hikes, and giving 11 million people greater security and a place to call home; and more rights for workers, including bereavement leave on day one—ask anyone who has lost someone, and they will say just how important it is to have bereavement leave. We have lifted half a million children out of poverty. We often say in this House that every child should go as far as their talent or ability will take them. That does not happen if they are growing up in poverty. The Conservatives have fought us at every turn. I am proud of what we are delivering. There is much more to do.
Mrs Badenoch
The truth is that unemployment has risen every single month since they came into office. Mr Speaker, you can listen to their cheers get weaker and thinner with every passing moment. The fact is, despite his huge majority, the Prime Minister does not have the votes to reform welfare. There is a solution—a Conservative solution—[Interruption.] Labour Members are all jeering now, but I do not know why they are supporting the Prime Minister; he is more than happy to release their text messages while all of his have disappeared. Disappearing messages from a disappearing PM. There is a Conservative solution: benefits bill down, taxes down, growth up. Everyone in this House knows that the Prime Minister is just a caretaker keeping the seat warm for the Mayor of Manchester. But it does not matter who is in charge; Labour MPs will keep asking who they can tax to pay more benefits—it is in their DNA. The truth is that the problem is not this passive Prime Minister; the problem is the Labour party.
The Prime Minister
Forgive me if I do not take too much notice of the Leader of the Opposition. For 14 years they broke our welfare system, lost control of our borders, presided over the biggest fall in living standards on record, and broke the economy, prisons and the NHS—I could go on and on. No wonder she and the Conservatives are totally irrelevant. This Labour Government are delivering change. The biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation—delivered. The Renters’ Rights Act 2026—delivered. Record funding for our NHS—delivered. The fastest growing economy in the G7—delivered. Lifting half a million children out of poverty—delivered. We are going to fight even harder for working people and a stronger and fairer Britain.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I would like to associate myself with the words of the Prime Minister regarding the tragic death of Lance Bombardier Ciara Sullivan. We send our condolences to her family on this terrible loss.
I welcome some of what the Prime Minister has said about fuel duty. Yes, there is still a freeze, but we asked him about this on 11 March and 25 March and he said he was not going to do it, so I thank him for the U-turn—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shaking their heads—it would make more sense if they just did what we are doing, because they get there in the end anyway.
Yesterday, Labour MPs voted to ban new British oil and gas licences. Why?
The Prime Minister
In relation to fuel duty, under the plans that we inherited, fuel duty was due to go up by 5% in April. We stopped that and the Conservatives voted against it. We are now extending the freeze because of events in the middle east. I know that the Leader of the Opposition likes to claim responsibility for things that have got literally nothing to do with her—in her mind, she won Eurovision on Saturday and scored the winning goal in the FA cup final—but she never takes any responsibility for what the Conservatives did for 14 long years.
Oil and gas is coming out of the North sea 24/7. It will play an important role for many years to come. We are supporting existing oil and gas fields throughout their lifespans and we made changes in November to allow neighbouring fields to be exploited, but families across the UK are fed up with their bills going up and down because of global conflicts. The only way to take control is through renewables. We have now consented to renewables to power 23 million households. The Leader of the Opposition wants to stick with the old Tory energy policy, which is leaving households exposed to higher bills year after year.
Mrs Badenoch
What is causing problems for British consumers is the high energy prices, which were caused by the Prime Minister’s policies. I asked him why Labour Members voted for this, and he had no answer, so let me make clear what is going on: we are losing 1,000 jobs a month in oil and gas. I asked him about new licences, not existing drilling. Then, late last night, the Government snuck out an announcement that they were removing sanctions on Russian oil. Can the Prime Minister explain why oil from Russia is acceptable, but oil from Aberdeen is not?
The Prime Minister
Let me address the sanctions head-on, because we have been united across this House on these issues since the beginning of the conflict. What we announced yesterday was a strong new package of new sanctions, going well beyond existing sanctions. It is a new package. That includes new bans on maritime services on liquefied natural gas and new bans on refined oil products from Russia.
We also issued two targeted short-term licences to phase the new sanctions in and to protect UK consumers. That is standard practice. This Government have phased in sanctions in that way before, and the last Government used exactly the same technique when they introduced sanctions. When they did so, we supported them, because we could see that the sanctions were the right thing to do to bear down on Russia. These are new sanctions being phased in. This is not a question of lifting existing sanctions in any way whatsoever, and we will continue to work with our allies on further sanction packages.
Mrs Badenoch
That was a very weak set of cheers from the MPs who are trying to get rid of the Prime Minister. He does not know what he is talking about. This level of processology is not going to get him out of these difficult answers. Let me tell him what is going on: Labour is giving money to Russia, and Reform is taking money from Russia. There is only one party that is standing up to Russia, and that is the Conservative party. I cannot believe he is actually saying that he is doing something good on the war in Ukraine. What is he talking about? This morning, Ukraine’s sanctions chief disagreed with the Prime Minister’s approach. That is what Ukraine is saying.
In March, when the United States eased sanctions on Russia, the Prime Minister said:
“All partners should maintain pressure on Russia and its war chest”.
The Prime Minister also said:
“Our sanctions remain, and there is no question about that.”
What has changed?
The Prime Minister
I really think that on an issue of this importance, which is about further sanctions on Russia in relation to Ukraine, it is really important that the position is not misrepresented. This is a new package of sanctions. None of the existing sanctions are being lifted in any way, so this is not less pressure on Russia; it is more pressure on Russia. It is more pressure than there was the day before yesterday and more pressure than there was under the last Government.
What is happening is that those sanctions are being phased in, in a way that was used by the last Government when they introduced new sanctions. We bothered to do the processology and work out what we were doing, and we supported them, because we could see that they put more pressure on Russia. Similar methods are used by other countries. They are done because of the impact on the market and to protect UK consumers. These are new sanctions putting more pressure on Russia. If the right hon. Lady had done her homework, she would actually support us on this.
Mrs Badenoch
Being patronising is not a substitute for understanding policy—[Interruption.] I have heard this tone before; this is the same tone that the Prime Minister used during the Mandelson scandal. Labour Members were all cheering, but then it turned out that he was wrong, wrong, wrong. He says that other countries are doing this; the EU is not doing this. Let me make it clear—I know it hurts him to hear it: he is now choosing to buy dirty Russian oil. That money will be used to fund the killing of Ukrainian soldiers. Isn’t he ashamed?
The Prime Minister
I really think that to misunderstand and misrepresent what is happening—this is a very serious issue. We are working—[Interruption.] These are new bans—they are new sanctions. They are new maritime services bans on LNG, as of yesterday. They are new bans on refined oil products from Russia, as of yesterday. They are being phased in, in the same way that previous sanctions regimes have been phased in, exactly as the last Government did and we have done. Other countries do exactly the same. The EU has its own way of doing it. Australia and Canada have their own way of doing it. To play party politics on Ukraine, where we have stood firm! The only person who benefits when we play party politics on Russia and Ukraine is Putin.
Mrs Badenoch
That pompous tone does not cover for the fact that the Prime Minister has got his policy all wrong. I have asked him about oil and gas again and again and again. The last time, he told me that it was the Energy Secretary’s job and it had nothing to do with him. That is what is destroying this country. It is not playing politics; it is speaking up for the people who are out there. The fact is that more people are buying Russian oil because British oil is not being drilled. He is sanctioning British oil but not Russian oil, and he should be ashamed. I cannot believe that this Prime Minister, even when he has nothing to lose, continues to defend banning new British oil and gas licences.
In April, Britain saw the single biggest drop in employment ever since the pandemic—and that is under Labour. Some 210,000 people have lost their jobs in the last year. What the Prime Minister is doing is going to cost thousands more people their jobs, especially in cities such as Aberdeen that rely on oil and gas, so can he tell us why he is doing everything to save his job and doing nothing to save other people’s jobs?
The Prime Minister
There is drilling in the North sea. [Interruption.] She said that there is no drilling in the North sea—she is going to have to refer herself to the Privileges Committee. There is drilling, it is 24/7, and oil and gas are coming out. That will be important for many, many years to come. We are supporting those existing oil and gas fields throughout their lifespan, and we made changes in November to allow neighbouring fields to be exploited, but it is because we are on the international market that our prices for businesses and households go up every time there is an international conflict. We saw it with Ukraine and we saw it with Iran, and people were fed up with the last Government not taking control of their bills. We are taking control of their bills; the way to do that is through renewables, and that is what we are doing.
Mrs Badenoch
It gets worse and worse—the Prime Minister does not understand the policy. I am asking him about new oil and gas licences, which Labour Members voted against yesterday. If they had approved those licences for Jackdaw and Rosebank like we did, we would have that oil in this country now.
Just listening to the Prime Minister, I wonder if he is okay. He is so deep in the bunker. He is importing sanctioned Russian oil, nationalising steel and imposing price controls in the supermarket—it is like the Soviets won. This country needs a Government who have got their act together. Instead, what we have is a Prime Minister hanging by a thread with fake support from his Back Benchers, too scared to take difficult decisions, and losing his moral compass by backsliding on Ukraine. [Interruption.] Yes, he is. The shaking of Labour Members’ heads is so feeble—it is absolutely laughable. Yesterday, we saw them huddled in the corridors, talking about Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting. The fact is that the Prime Minister has a Cabinet fighting to replace him, and the worst part is that they are not getting rid of him over his terrible agenda—no, they actually like it. They just want a better salesman. Is it not the case that it does not matter who replaces him; the real problem is the Labour party? [Hon. Members: “More!”]
Debate on the Address
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(2 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
This King’s Speech is taking place against the most extraordinary backdrop. We knew that the carriages were booked, that the horses were ready and that the King was coming, but would we have a Prime Minister? It is such an honour to be the Leader of the Opposition who gets to respond today. May I start by congratulating the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address on their excellent speeches? I also congratulate the Whips on finding two Back Benchers prepared to support the Prime Minister at this time.
The hon. Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah) gave a moving and funny speech. I especially appreciated her comments about black and brown faces on TV—or, as my children say, “Oh look, it’s mummy again.” She only touched lightly on the fact that she is someone who has faced one of the most challenging childhoods imaginable, yet through the strength of her character, has made it to this place. She is made of tough stuff, and that is something we need more of in this House. Anyone who can boast of chewing up and spitting out George Galloway in an election is clearly formidable.
I also congratulate the hon. Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on successfully delivering a humorous and warm-hearted speech. As he noted, he is my constituency neighbour. He ran the London marathon last month, raising money for the St Clare hospice, which cares for his constituents and mine, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank him for doing that. I have become a big fan of his after listening to his speech, especially as he was so generous in his comments about the Harlow Conservatives’ successful election campaign and my councillors’ outstanding work on regenerating the town centre. If things on his side of the House are getting a bit much, he would be very welcome to cross the Floor and help the Conservatives carry on that work. I think we can say that the proposer and seconder of the Loyal Address have upheld the best traditions of the House.
I would of course like to pay tribute to His Majesty the King. His Majesty has served through a period of great personal difficulty, and throughout it he has exemplified the virtues of grace, dignity, humour, modesty and resolve in the face of adversity—virtues that were on full display during his hugely successful state visit to the United States. I am sure the whole House will have admired his skilful speech to Congress. It was a speech full of the wisdom and courage needed for our times. Of course, we would never have got to hear it if we had listened to some people in this House who called for the King’s visit to be cancelled—thank goodness no one listens to the leader of the Liberal Democrats.
As for the Prime Minister, when he was young, he called for the end of the monarchy, so I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has seen the error of his ways, because previous King Charleses took a much dimmer view of that kind of thing. I am only sorry that this new-found appreciation of the monarchy and our country’s traditions has come too late, because this is the first parliamentary Session ever without the hereditary peers. Their departure will be keenly felt and our Parliament will be poorer for it, especially when we consider some of the people Labour has been replacing them with—people who have already had the Whip removed before they have even taken their seats.
Mr Speaker, I know that the convention is for this to be a light-hearted debate, but as I have already said, this is a highly unusual moment. The Prime Minister is in office but not in power. Everyone is trying to pretend it is all right—it is not all right. In the past 48 hours, nearly 100 Labour MPs have called for the Prime Minister to resign. Four Ministers have quit. It is clear that his authority has gone and that he will not be able to deliver what little there is in this King’s Speech. This is a Government less than two years in office who have already run out of ideas and run out of road.
So how did we get here? There is a great line in the musical “Hamilton”: “Winning is easy, governing is harder”. Everything that has gone wrong in Labour’s first two years comes back to one problem: it came into office with no plan. It did not understand the difference between winning an election and governing a country. It was very easy to make promises in opposition—promises to freeze council tax, promises to take £300 off energy bills, promises to the WASPI women. Hundreds of Labour MPs took photos with them to post on their Facebook pages, websites and election leaflets, but at no point did they bother to think how they would deliver any of it.
Labour did not spend its time in opposition thinking deeply about the country’s problems. It assumed that governing in the 2020s would be like governing in the 1990s, but it is not. Britain is facing new structural problems. We have an ageing—[Interruption.] Labour Members all shout at me; I know they cannot wait to get back to their plotting, but it is quite important that we hear what is being said. We have an ageing population, a falling birth rate and a welfare bill that is spiralling out of control. We have an information revolution in the shape of AI that threatens to unravel the world of work as we know it, and the cost of energy is driving industry out of the country.
Labour was taken by surprise that we are living in a more competitive and increasingly hostile world. Its manifesto was just a set of misleading promises. It promised no new taxes on working people—fail. It promised to crack down on illegal immigration—fail. It promised to tread more lightly on people’s lives—epic fail. It made promises without knowing how anything works.
Let us look at housing. Just after Labour took office, when I was shadow Housing Secretary, I stood at this Dispatch Box and warned the former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner), that she had been stitched up and that the 1.5 million new homes Labour promised had been hung like a millstone around her neck. I knew the Government would not be able to meet that target, because they did not understand why more houses were not being built. Sure enough, they are already more than a third down on their target, and well behind what we delivered. Of course, in the end it was not 1.5 million homes that did for the former Deputy Prime Minister; it took just one flat in Brighton to bring her down.
It is so obvious—[Interruption.] I know Labour Members don’t want to hear it. Look at them—they are so arrogant that they want to lead our country, but they cannot even lead a coup. It is so obvious that they cannot handle being in government. They hate the responsibility, and they hate having to take tough decisions. They prefer scratching the itches that they had in opposition: giving inflation-busting pay rises to the unions, with 28% for the doctors who, after nearly two years, are still striking, and handing out more benefits to the only people who will still vote for them, because Labour Members do not understand that poverty is created not by a lack of benefits but by a failing economy.
We spent the last Session listening to Labour MPs telling us how great everything was going, and no doubt we will hear lots of grandstanding speeches this week, telling us what a fantastic job they did. How absurd, given the number of them demanding that the Prime Minister stands down. We counted, Mr Speaker, and there were 24 U-turns in that first parliamentary Session: winter fuel, family farms, grooming gangs, welfare reform, social media for under-16s, day one workers’ rights—the list goes on and on. Every single one of those U-turns had at its core a single issue: the Prime Minister’s total lack of judgment. This is a man who, faced with a crisis of vision, charisma and electoral success, sent for Gordon Brown.
Leadership is about having a vision for this country, and the courage to take difficult decisions, persuading your party that those difficult decisions will pay off in time, and taking responsibility for your mistakes. The Prime Minister has failed on every count. We have had pillars, promises, four-point plans, five-point plans, missions, with none of it achieving anything—reset after reset after reset. Even if the Prime Minister lasts long enough in office for this Loyal Address to be delivered, the Bills announced today do not remotely come close to what the country needs—[Interruption.] Labour Members are chuntering, Mr Speaker, but not a single one of them dares to intervene on me.
I welcome the Government’s ongoing support for Ukraine and their commitment to NATO. In this increasingly dangerous world, it is more important than ever that we stand with our allies in the fight against tyranny. I also commend the Government for their commitment to speed up the delivery of infrastructure such as new nuclear. Too many Governments have been frustrated in their attempts to deliver nuclear projects quickly, and we will support efforts to make the process simpler, faster and cheaper.
I also want to be generous to the Home Secretary, because I see that she is trying to do something about illegal immigration. The elephant in the room is that she almost certainly will not be Home Secretary for much longer, and sadly, no one else in the Labour party looks remotely interested in bringing down illegal immigration. The rest of the offerings in the King’s Speech make it clear that Labour Members have learned no lessons from their mistakes in government so far. All we have is a load of reannounced policies: hounding our brave veterans through the courts; legislating for digital ID—a policy they told us they had dropped; and banning trail hunting, which is just more class war that makes no one’s life better. Scrapping NHS England is something the Prime Minister announced 14 months ago—but I suppose the Health Secretary has been a bit distracted lately, hasn’t he? [Interruption.] He’s chuntering now. Why don’t you just do your job? There is no point in him giving me dirty looks; we all know what he has been up to.
Even worse is what is not in the Gracious Speech. There is no defence readiness Bill, because apparently it is not ready. Where are the plans for welfare reform? There are none, because Labour MPs have blocked them. Where is the plan to make savings? There isn’t one, because Labour Members do not know how to make savings; they only know how to spend money—other people’s money. Where is the plan to support businesses? There isn’t one, because they do not understand that it is business that creates growth, not Government. They have no answers on what really matters: the problems that must be solved to get Britain working again.
I do feel very sorry for Labour Back Benchers. [Interruption.] It’s true—I do feel sorry for Labour Back Benchers. They arrived here not that long ago with such high hopes. Some of them, in fact, were so talented that they were made Ministers before ever speaking a word in Parliament. So talented! Although one of them has just resigned; I must not forget that. We have watched their growing horror, day after day and week after week, as this hope descended into total chaos; the dread as they are sent out yet again to defend the indefensible; the injustice of feeling like pariahs in their own constituencies—banned from pubs and banned from hairdressers, which is presumably why all the women on the Government Front Bench have the same hairstyle. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be—[Interruption.] They can complain as much as they like. I was not expecting this to be comfortable for them. They are the ones who are trying to unseat their Prime Minister; they should face that. We have seen the realisation that their legacy is just going to be breakfast clubs and Peter Mandelson.
Labour MPs have been treated as disposable by their leadership: sacked for backing the two-child benefit cap, sacked for opposing welfare changes, sacked for supporting farmers. The Prime Minister then U-turned on all of them. It must be tough when you take a principled stand and have the Whip removed, only for the Government to confirm six months later that they agreed with you all along. It is no wonder that nearly 100 Labour MPs have now called for the Prime Minister to go. I know that there are another 100 who claim to be supporting him, although some of them did not even know that their name was on that list. When you can only get a quarter of your MPs to publicly back you, the game is up, so the starting gun for the Labour leadership contest has been fired.
Let’s have a look at the runners and riders. We have the former Deputy Prime Minister—she is not here—who has giving up vaping but still has not paid her taxes. We have the Health Secretary, who accidentally sent his takeover plans to No. 10—almost as incompetent as leaving them on the photocopier. And we have the Mayor of Manchester, a self-proclaimed winner who has twice failed to win the Labour leadership, including against the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). As one Labour MP said about all the candidates in this race, and I quote:
“We have to face up to the fact that every single one of them is”—
I apologise, Mr Speaker—
“f****** useless.”
I do feel sorry for the poor Labour MPs who will now be subjected to months of peacocking by leadership candidates while the country is not being governed. I have some advice for whichever of them eventually takes over. Getting to No. 10 is not an award for being in a game show. This is not “Strictly Come Dancing” and, despite appearances, it is not “The Traitors” either. If you are a Housing Secretary who cannot work out her housing taxes, if you are a Health Secretary who can only cut waiting lists by deleting names from them, if you are Gordon Brown’s former Chief Secretary to the Treasury and you think the bond markets are a hoax, I can assure you that being Prime Minister is going to be a lot tougher. Too many have failed because they thought that winning an election or a leadership contest was the success, but it is not. The work does not end when you get the job; that is when it starts.
It is absolutely preposterous that the Government are here laying out a programme as their Ministers are resigning and a large proportion of the Labour party is saying that the Prime Minister needs to go. The whole thing is totally illogical. Either Labour MPs agree with this agenda—in which case, why are they trying to get rid of the Prime Minister? Or they do not agree with this agenda—in which case, what on earth are we all doing here?
It is time to be brutally honest. The country is angry with the entire political class—all of us here. They are not happy with how we have been doing politics. It is time to get serious.
Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady seeks to lecture us on why everyone is so fed up with the political class, but she is using this opportunity not to lay out what the Conservatives would do, but to insult everyone on the Labour Benches. Surely that is not the way to proceed.
Mrs Badenoch
Oh, I am not done yet; there is plenty more to come.
The right hon. Lady says that she is getting a lecture, and she is. We are all getting a lecture, because we are legislators of the United Kingdom. We were sent here to fix difficult things, not to focus on our personal hobby horses, ranging from the petty to the puerile.
Labour Members do not need to be scared of the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage)—I am not. He is not the cause of Britain’s problems—[Hon. Members: “You are!”] Labour Members are still delusional. I am sorry to puncture the bubble, but I am not here to pretend that what is happening is not happening. They can all pretend and live in la-la land, but I am going to speak the truth to them. The hon. Member for Clacton is not the cause of Britain’s problems; he is a symptom of the failure of the political class to focus on what matters. If you fix the problems that people care about, he goes away.
Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady says that the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) is a symptom of the problem, but does she agree that she and he have something in common? She very loosely agreed that we should race with America into war in Iran, then just a week later she thought, “Maybe that’s not such a good idea.” Does that not prove why she and he are totally unsuitable for speaking from the Government side of the House?
Mrs Badenoch
That was a nice try, but it is not going to work.
You cannot solve the problems of the country unless you have a plan to fix the civil service, the regulators, the legislative straitjacket and the powers transferred from Parliament to the courts. Unless you fix the structures of Government, everyone will continue to fail. Britain is not ungovernable and it is not broken.
The right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) asked what the plan was. We have published an alternative King’s Speech, and the reason is that we need to take tough decisions to get the country out of the mess we are in by cutting wasteful spending, funding defence, securing our borders and reducing the cost of energy. If you want to bring down bills for families and bring industry back to this country, you need a plan to scrap the net zero legislation that is strangling industry and making energy costs higher. That is why we are proposing a cheap energy Bill to do just that.
If you want businesses to employ people, you need to stop crushing them with thousands of pages of employment laws and stop handing power to the unions. You need to stop hammering businesses with tax rises. That is why we are proposing a get Britain working Bill, which would scrap laws that are no longer fit for purpose and are killing jobs.
If you want to get a grip on illegal immigration and remove foreign criminals from the country, you must have a plan to leave the European convention on human rights and repeal the Human Rights Act. Efforts to get control of our borders have been frustrated because power has been taken out of the hands of Ministers. We need to bring that power back, so that we do not have murderers staying in our country because the courts stop us from deporting them. Our alternative King’s Speech shows how it can be done, letting the Government, not the courts, decide who comes and goes. Prime Ministers are going to keep running into problems until they deal with activist lawyers and international agreements that tie the Government’s hands against the interests of the British public. [Interruption.] Labour Members are chuntering that this is “boring.” Does someone want to stand up and tell us who they are supporting: the plotters or the PM? I know that is what they really want to get to. They are not interested in hearing what the plan for the country should be, because they are too focused on Labour party problems.
Next, we must reduce welfare spending, which is eating every penny that we generate in income tax and more. We must spend much more on defence. Even former Labour Defence Secretaries are pleading with the Government to do so. That is why we are proposing a sovereign defence fund that will overhaul Britain’s defence industrial base. That is what the alternative could be. The alternative King’s Speech makes difficult choices, because that is what leadership is. We have laid out these plans now because we are more than happy for Labour to take them; they might be our political opponents, but we are all citizens of this country. We recognise the enormous challenges facing Britain. We want to see those problems solved, and so do our constituents.
Time and again, I have offered the Prime Minister support to pass difficult legislation. Time and again, he has turned it down. It might be too late for him now, but it is not too late for his successor. It is time to get serious—it is time to deliver. That is what the British public expect, and it is what the Conservative party will do.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(3 months ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
It is the end of this Session, and what a contrast with the beginning. Back in July 2024, the Government Benches were full adoring new MPs asking sycophantic questions; yesterday, the Prime Minister was reduced to begging those same MPs to save his own skin. He has broken his promise to grow the economy; the only thing that has grown is the welfare bill. Can the Prime Minister tell us how many more people are out of work and claiming universal credit since he took office?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Lady talks about what we have done, in relation to people out of work. We have put in place the youth guarantee for young people; we have raised the national minimum wage, thanks to our Chancellor; we have helped young people into work by cutting NHS waiting lists, thanks to the work of the Health Secretary; we have put more police on the streets, thanks to the work of the Home Secretary; and we have cut energy bills for young people, thanks to the work of the Energy Secretary. I am very proud of what this Labour Government have delivered in the first Session of this Parliament.
Mrs Badenoch
The Prime Minister does not want to say how many more people are out of work and claiming universal credit since he took office; perhaps he does not know. Let me tell him: it is 1.5 million people. That is the entire population of Leeds, Cardiff and Edinburgh put together. Hard-working people are being taxed more and more to pay for a ballooning benefits bill. Can the Prime Minister tell us why, on his watch, for the first time ever, we are now spending more on welfare than we earn in income tax?
The Prime Minister
The welfare system the Leader of the Opposition complains of is the one the Conservatives put in place. We are reforming it to improve it—and what did they do when we put that forward? They voted to keep the same broken welfare system.
Mrs Badenoch
That answer was as honest as the Prime Minister’s reason for sacking Olly Robbins; perhaps he would like to apologise for it right now. Let me tell him why we are spending more on welfare than we are earning in tax. It is because of him and his terrible policies—this is all under him. We are spending so much on welfare that we cannot afford to defend the country. If he will not listen to me, perhaps he will listen to the former Labour Defence Secretary, Lord Robertson, who said:
“We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget.”
I agree with Lord Robertson. Why doesn’t the Prime Minister?
The Prime Minister
This is the Labour Government who increased defence spending, with the highest sustained spend since the cold war. What did the Conservatives do? When they came into power, defence spending was 2.5%; when they left power, it was 2.3%. Even their own Defence Secretary admitted that they “hollowed out” our armed forces. We will take no lectures from them on defence.
Mrs Badenoch
Talking about more defence spending is not the same as giving more money for defence. The Prime Minister has been in office for nearly two years. He has a welfare plan until 2031, but he has not produced a defence investment plan. We have gone backwards on defence under him, because we are borrowing to pay for welfare. Yesterday we learned that the cost of Government borrowing is at its highest in two decades; that is under him. Instead of getting a grip on the economy, the Chancellor is briefing out that there could be rent controls, in order to curry favour with left-wing Back Benchers. This is not a serious way to run the economy. It is time the Prime Minister gave her an easier job, so will he listen to businesses and the country and reshuffle the Chancellor?
The Prime Minister
At the spring statement, the Chancellor was very proud to say that inflation was down to 3% and falling; interest rates have been cut six times; and we have seen the growth figures for the early part of this year. The Leader of the Opposition says, “Well, the cost of borrowing’s gone up.” Yes—because there is a conflict in Iran. And what did she want to do? When I said we would not be dragged into that war because I had thought through the consequences, including the economic consequences, what did she do? She said we should jump in with both feet, without regard to the consequences. She cannot complain now about the implications.
Mrs Badenoch
I did not hear the Prime Minister say that he is not reshuffling the Chancellor; it sounds like she’s toast. Meanwhile, the former Deputy Prime Minister is on manoeuvres. This Government are like a bad episode of “Game of Thrones”. The Prime Minister’s own people have turned against him, and all the while, he is holed up in his castle, wetting himself about a visit from the king in the north. Yesterday, one Labour MP actually said that his days are numbered. It was one of them—I wonder who, because they are all looking guilty as hell. Isn’t the real reason the Prime Minister cannot cut welfare that he has squandered all his political capital saving his own skin?
The Prime Minister
The Leader of the Opposition talks about playing political games. That is what she was doing yesterday. This House considered her motion, and rejected it decisively, because everyone saw it for what it was: a desperate, baseless political stunt ahead of the May elections. While she and the Opposition were playing games here, I was chairing a Cobra meeting, going through the contingencies and managing that war in the middle east. They think political games are more important than managing the implications of the war in the middle east, which will affect every single one of their constituents. None of them asks any questions about it; none of them wants to debate it; they just want to debate silly political stunts. Even though we did not join the war—no thanks to her—my duty is to protect the British public from its consequences, and nothing is going to distract me from what matters to the British public.
Mrs Badenoch
I think the whole country is sick of this man’s tone-deaf, pompous moralising. Last week, we all saw him punch the Speaker’s Chair. This is not a man who is in control. Since the last King’s Speech, it has been one disaster after another: cronyism, jobs for friends of convicted paedophiles, peerages for other friends of convicted paedophiles, broken promises on taxes, and U-turn after U-turn after U-turn. He has lost a Deputy Prime Minister, two chiefs of staff, two Cabinet Secretaries, the support of his Back Benchers and all his credibility. [Interruption.] Labour Members can jeer as much as they like; they are going to have to go to their constituency and explain to all those people why they did what they did last night. The fact is that the Prime Minister was reduced to whipping his MPs to save him, and to pleading with a tax dodger to rejoin his Cabinet. How much longer do we all have to put up with his shambles?
The Prime Minister
I changed my party and I won a general election. She has changed her party, because when I became leader of mine, the Conservative party was three times the size it is now. She has changed it, and it is now even smaller than when she started as leader, because half of them are up there on the Reform Benches. The stunt the Conservatives played yesterday was because they do not like what we are delivering: more rights at work, more security for renters, and half a million children lifted out of poverty. That is our mandate, that is our mission, and nothing is going to hold us back.
Oral Answers to Questions
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
Does the Prime Minister stand by his statement at the Dispatch Box on 10 September last year that
“full due process was followed”—[Official Report, 10 September 2025; Vol. 772, c. 859]
in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as our ambassador to Washington?
The Prime Minister
Yes, I do. Let me make it clear at the outset that the appointment itself was a mistake. It was my mistake. I have apologised to the victims for it, and I do so again. What I set out to the House on Monday is that Foreign Office officials granted security clearance to Mandelson against the recommendation of UK Security Vetting. Yesterday, Sir Olly Robbins was asked if he shared that decision with me, No. 10 or any other Ministers. He gave a clear answer: no. That puts to bed all the allegations levelled at me by those opposite in relation to dishonesty. I believe—[Interruption.] Last week, they were all saying that it must have been shared with me; Sir Olly was very clear yesterday it was not. I believe not sharing it was a serious error of judgment. That information should have been shared with me and other Ministers, and if it had been, Mandelson would not have been committed to post.
Mrs Badenoch
It has not put to bed anything. On 11 November 2024—long before any vetting had happened—the Prime Minister received advice from Simon Case, the then Cabinet Secretary. The advice said the appointment would require
“the necessary security clearances…before confirming”
the Prime Minister’s choice. This advice was ignored, so how can the Prime Minister still believe that confirming Mandelson before the security clearances was following “full due process”?
The Prime Minister
This was looked into by Sir Chris Wormald. I asked him to review the appointment process, including the vetting. He confirmed—his words—“appropriate processes were followed”. The Leader of the Opposition has put great weight on the order of events. I remind her what Sir Chris said last November in evidence to the House. He said that
“when we are making appointments from outside the civil service…the normal thing is for…security clearance to happen after appointment but before the person signs a contract and takes up post.”
That is what happened in this case. Sir Olly Robbins himself also gave evidence, and he said that
“as is normally the case with external appointments”
in his Department,
“the appointment was made subject to obtaining security clearance.”
On top of that, Sir Olly Robbins has made it clear that the fact that developed vetting was after the announcement made, in his words, no material difference to the conclusion that was reached. I add this: what Sir Olly Robbins wrote to the Committee yesterday was this:
“When the Prime Minister informed the House that the proper process had been followed in respect of”
national security vetting,
“he was correct.”
Mrs Badenoch
It is very interesting that the Prime Minister mentions Chris Wormald. He is relying on advice given to him after Mandelson was sacked by a Cabinet Secretary the Prime Minister then sacked. That is not relevant. I am talking about the advice he was given before the appointment. He keeps mentioning Sir Olly Robbins. Sir Olly Robbins told us that the Prime Minister even sought clearance from His Majesty the King before the vetting. He had already got agreement from the US Administration—the Chair of the Select Committee said that. Mandelson was a done deal. Yesterday, Sir Olly Robbins said that the
“focus was on getting Mandelson out to Washington quickly.”
He said the Prime Minister’s team showed a “dismissive attitude” to vetting, and they even argued Peter Mandelson did not need any vetting at all. This clearly was not proper process. Why was due process not followed?
The Prime Minister
Let me deal with this directly, particularly this question of pressure in relation to the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson and to put him in place. Sir Olly Robbins could not have been clearer in his evidence yesterday. He said that
“I didn’t feel under…pressure personally in terms of my judgment”—
his words. He went on to say:
“I…have complete confidence that…recommendations to me and the discussion we had and the decision we made were rigorously independent of”
any “pressure.” On top of that, he was asked if any “conversations…led” him
“to believe that…Mandelson needed to take up this role regardless of”
the vetting outcome. He said:
“I can say with certainty that it was never put to me that way.”
No pressure existed whatsoever in relation to this case. What is unacceptable is that the recommendation of UKSV was not given to me before Mandelson took up his post.
Mrs Badenoch
We all heard what Sir Olly Robbins said yesterday. The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister spent a lot of time telling us just how furious he was to learn that Mandelson failed the vetting—the same Prime Minister who was trying to get him to Washington without any vetting at all. It’s just unbelievable. The reason the Cabinet Secretary advised the Prime Minister to carry out full vetting before the appointment—this is common sense, Mr Speaker—was to protect our national security. The due diligence document said that Mandelson remained on the board of the Kremlin-linked defence company Sistema long after Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014. The Prime Minister told us on Monday that he had read that due diligence report. Why did the Prime Minister want to make a man with links to the Kremlin our ambassador in Washington?
The Prime Minister
Let me deal with the first allegation the right hon. Lady put in that question. It was always the case that there would be developed vetting in this case. That was the understood process. That was carried out. It was reviewed by Sir Chris Wormald, and he said it was the appropriate process. Sir Olly was absolutely clear that nobody put pressure on him to make this appointment, whatever the sequence of developed vetting. In relation to what was in the due process, any issues of national security are dealt with in the developed vetting process. I knew that. Peter Mandelson received clearance through that process.
The problem, as I said to the House, was that I was unaware that UKSV recommended against clearance. That is information that should have been brought to my attention. It recommended, with red flags, that there should not be clearance and that it was high concern. That information should have been made available to me at the time and subsequently. The fact that it was not was a very serious error of judgment.
Mrs Badenoch
I do not know what planet the Prime Minister is on. Appointing someone with known links to the Kremlin is not full due process. If anybody had brought that sort of name to me when I was a Secretary of State, I would have said, “No way.” The Prime Minister thought someone with Kremlin links was still probably okay—“Let’s do some vetting.” Why does this matter? He keeps leaning on Sir Olly Robbins, a man he sacked—he keeps leaning on him. Sir Olly Robbins said yesterday that Peter Mandelson was given access to highly classified briefings even before he had received clearance. That was a clear national security risk. How can the Prime Minister still maintain that full due process was followed?
The Prime Minister
As a Member of the House of Lords and Privy Counsellor, and in accordance with guidance, documentation could have been provided to him and was provided to him. STRAP material comes after developed vetting, but because he was a Privy Counsellor he could have access to other material before developed vetting.
Mrs Badenoch
This is a joke. The Prime Minister says a Member of the House of Lords. Does he mean people like Matthew Doyle? [Interruption.] I am amazed at the level of chuntering from Labour MPs. The Prime Minister promised them probity. What he has given them is cronyism and an old boys’ club, where Matthew Doyle is being proposed as an ambassador. It is ridiculous.
We all heard Sir Olly Robbins’ testimony yesterday. The head of the Foreign Office was sacked for the Prime Minister’s own failings. His Back Benchers know that is not fair. Even his most loyal Cabinet members will not defend it. The Prime Minister did not follow the process the then Cabinet Secretary set out in November 2024. He knows he did not follow due process, yet he told the House he had.
Mr Speaker, I cannot accuse the Prime Minister of deliberately misleading the House, but everyone can see what has happened here. This was not due process. Everyone knows the price of misleading the House. Will the Prime Minister finally take responsibility and go?
The Prime Minister
Let us be absolutely clear. Before Mandelson took up his post, UKSV recommended with red flags that clearance should be denied, and there was high concern. That that was not brought to my attention, or to the attention of the Foreign Secretary at the time or subsequently, is a very serious error of judgment, and anyone in my position would have lost confidence in the former permanent secretary. The Leader of the Opposition claimed on Friday that Mandelson could not have been cleared against security advice, but she was wrong about that. She said that Ministers must have been told, but she was wrong about that. She claimed there was deliberate dishonesty, but she was wrong about that—wrong, wrong, wrong. She rushed to judgment, as she always does, just like with the Iran war. I was elected by the British people because the Opposition let the country down for 14 long years. [Interruption.] Whatever she says—whatever noise they make—nothing is going to distract me from delivering for our country.
Peter Mandelson: Government Appointment
Kemi Badenoch Excerpts(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Mrs Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Government’s accountability to the House in connection to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States of America.
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this important debate.
The Prime Minister personally decided to appoint a serious, known national security risk to our most sensitive diplomatic post. Peter Mandelson was not just a man who had already been sacked twice from Government for lying and not just a man who had a public relationship with a convicted paedophile, but a man with links to the Kremlin and China—links so close that they were raised as red flags with the Prime Minister before his appointment.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister did not deny that he knew about those links before he appointed Mandelson. He could not deny that because by his own admission he had seen the documents that proved the links. I cannot overstate how serious a matter this is. The Prime Minister sent a known security risk to Washington, to a position where he would see our most important ally’s top secret intelligence. What if he had seen something and leaked it to one of our enemies? How much would that have damaged our security partnership? We cannot even be sure that that did not happen.
What is most extraordinary is that the Prime Minister appointed Peter Mandelson before vetting was complete. He did that despite a letter from the then Cabinet Secretary, Lord Case, clearly expressing to the Prime Minister that the process required security vetting to be done before the appointment. So how can he then have claimed on the Floor of the House that the process was followed, when he knew that it had not been? The Prime Minister mentioned the word “process” more than 100 times in Parliament yesterday, but he was the one who did not follow that process.
This morning, we have heard the bombshell testimony of the former permanent secretary of the Foreign Office, Sir Olly Robbins. Sir Olly Robbins had a long and distinguished career serving Ministers. He is not the sort of person to give us a frank personal account of how things played out last January. So when he told us today that Downing Street put the Foreign Office under “constant pressure” to clear Peter Mandelson, that No. 10 showed a “dismissive approach” to Mandelson’s vetting process, that it would have been “very difficult indeed” to deny clearance and that doing so would have “damaged US-UK relationships”, we know he is giving us only the slightest indication of how bad things were. And that there was actually an overwhelming drive from the Prime Minister’s office to ensure Peter Mandelson was installed as ambassador.
Sir Olly Robbins has told us that No. 10 showed no interest in the vetting—no desire to wait and ensure that due process was followed. In fact, the Cabinet Office even questioned the need for Peter Mandelson to be vetted at all: the same Cabinet Office that had discovered Mandelson’s links to Epstein, China and Russia in its due diligence—the Cabinet Office that the Minister is in charge of right now. Instead, according to Robbins,
“The focus was on getting Mandelson out to Washington quickly”,
and before the vetting even started Peter Mandelson had already been granted access to
“highly classified briefing on a case-by-case basis”.
This is what the Prime Minister calls full due process.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
Did my right hon. Friend not find it astonishing that in the testimony today the ex-leader of the Foreign Office said that he was made to understand that before they had completed their clearances, Mandelson already had STRAP clearance, which gave him access to the most secure and most dangerous information held by Government?
Mrs Badenoch
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely right: it is extraordinary and it is shocking.
The Prime Minister might have refused to answer my question around his knowledge of Mandelson’s links to the Russian defence company Sistema yesterday, but that is only because he knows that we know the answer. It was there in the due diligence: his choice of ambassador retaining an interest in a Russian company linked to Vladimir Putin after the invasion of Crimea. And the Prime Minister’s response to seeing that information? According to Robbins, “constant pressure” on the Foreign Office to get the appointment done.
The Prime Minister, as my right hon. Friend has just mentioned, placed top secret intelligence in the hands of a man he knew to be a national security risk. He did so before the official security vetting not just knowingly but deliberately, and to an extent that left a senior civil servant with a distinguished career under the clear and obvious impression that the vetting must return only one possible outcome: that Peter Mandelson should be appointed. None of that was following full due process by the letter or the spirit of that phrase. This is no longer just about what the Prime Minister was or was not told; this is about what he did before the vetting process had even started.
And we now know that Mandelson was not a one-off. According to Sir Olly Robbins, No. 10 also asked for the disgraced Matthew Doyle, the Prime Minister’s then director of communications, to be made an ambassador. Astonishingly, the Prime Minister’s office even told Robbins to keep the request a secret from the Foreign Secretary. The idea that it is No. 10 who are the victims of others not following due process is, quite frankly, laughable.
The Prime Minister told Parliament yesterday that it was “staggering” that Olly Robbins had not shared the recommendations of UK Security Vetting with the then Cabinet Secretary, Chris Wormald. But today we learned from Robbins that he had never seen the original vetting file. If the Prime Minister is furious that Sir Olly Robbins did not share the vetting details with him or the former Cabinet Secretary, why is he not furious with the Cabinet Office for not sharing it? Put simply, why exactly did he sack Olly Robbins?
It is no surprise that the Prime Minister is not here today. These are difficult questions. He cannot claim not to have known about the risk that Mandelson posed, because, as he said yesterday, he saw the due diligence that disclosed it. I still find it inconceivable that, despite that failure of vetting being a front-page news story, no one in No. 10 was aware of it. He cannot deny that his decision put Britain at risk. The British public deserve to know how this failure happened and they deserve to hear it from the Prime Minister himself.
Yesterday, the Prime Minister had the chance to set the record straight, but Members on all sides—and no doubt the public—were left wholly unsatisfied with the answers he gave. I am sure they will share my deep disappointment that the Prime Minister has chosen not to be here today. There remain serious questions about the decisions that he took over the appointment of Peter Mandelson, but the Prime Minister does not want to answer any more questions today, so, in typical fashion, he has thrown someone else under the bus. I feel for the Minister sent out as a human shield for the Prime Minister. It is not this Minister who made the Mandelson appointment; that was above his pay grade. He cannot tell us what the Prime Minister was thinking when he made those decisions and he will not be able to provide this House with the answers that it deserves to hear.
This is simply what the Prime Minister does. Sue Gray, Matthew Doyle, Morgan McSweeney, Chris Wormald, Olly Robbins, Peter Mandelson—those appointments were the Prime Minister’s decision, people the Prime Minister chose to appoint and all people he then chose to sack. Are we meant to believe that all these people are the problem, rather than the Prime Minister’s judgment?
As usual, the Prime Minister’s explanations yesterday left us with even more questions than answers. He says that he was justified in appointing Mandelson before vetting because of advice he received from the then Cabinet Secretary, Chris Wormald. But how can that make sense, when that advice only came after the scandal had erupted? Post hoc advice is pointless. Soon after that, he then sacked Chris Wormald. Why is the Prime Minister now relying on the evidence of the very man he told us was doing so badly in the job that he sacked him?
Let us move on to the Prime Minister’s claim that no one in No. 10 was aware that Mandelson had failed his vetting. Enough people in Whitehall knew. Enough people knew for journalists from The Independent, the Mail and Sky News to find out. Journalists have released texts with the Prime Minister’s director of communications, where they made No. 10 aware of this fact. He did not deny that the story was true. Why not? Something simply does not add up. Despite this, the Prime Minister went on to assure the House and the public that Mandelson’s appointment was down to a failure of vetting. I cannot fathom how the Prime Minister can still claim not to have misled the House on this point.
It is telling that when given the opportunity yesterday to apologise for misleading the House, even inadvertently, by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont), the Prime Minister chose not to. I suspect that he chose not to do so because he knows that if he did, he would be bound by his own words and by the standards to which he held previous Prime Ministers from this very Dispatch Box. In 2022, he said that if the Prime Minister misleads the House, he must resign—either the Prime Minister is a man of his word, or he thinks there is one rule for him and another for everyone else.
Unbelievably, half the permanent secretaries who were in post when Labour took office less than two years ago have now gone. The sacking of senior civil servants to carry the can for the Prime Minister’s failures has already cost taxpayers more than £1.5 million in payouts—that is before the sacking of Sir Olly Robbins. It is quite something for the former Cabinet Secretary Lord O’Donnell to warn that the Prime Minister has created
“one of the worst crises in relations between ministers and mandarins of modern times”,
adding that the sacking of Sir Olly Robbins
“risks having a serious and sustained chilling effect on serving and prospective civil servants”.
Another former Cabinet Secretary, Lord Butler, has said that the Prime Minister put Sir Olly in an “impossible” position. These are serious people who are calling out the Prime Minister’s behaviour. The former head of propriety and ethics and deputy Cabinet Secretary, Helen MacNamara, has called the decision to sack Robbins “unacceptable”. She said that if the Government had published the papers that Parliament demanded back in February, this argument would be so much easier for everyone because we would all be operating on the basis of the same facts, and she is right.
The delay in publishing the information required by the Humble Address is shocking. Where are the key annotations, decisions and meeting records—the box returns, as they are called in Downing Street? Why are crucial forms left blank? These missing documents add to the mystery. Why are the Government still trying to cover this up?
Paul Holmes (Hamble Valley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will remember that I asked the Prime Minister yesterday about the box note of 11 November 2024, in which Simon Case recommended that vetting be gone through before the appointment was made. The Prime Minister’s decision note did not include the Prime Minister’s decision, which has been redacted from the conditions of the Humble Address. Does my right hon. Friend think that the redacted information would show what the Prime Minister was trying to achieve by appointing Peter Mandelson without the appropriate vetting?
Mrs Badenoch
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Why were the Prime Minister’s words redacted? These key pieces of information would help to solve this mystery—they would be much easier for us to understand than the words he gave at the Dispatch Box. I note that no Labour MPs have intervened on me, which is very unusual; when I am speaking in a debate, they are normally bobbing left, right and centre.
I am raising these concerns because of the seriousness of the situation the country is now in. With war in Europe, war in the middle east, a cost of living crisis and a global energy shock, we need a Prime Minister who has a grip on national security. Yet last week, the former Labour Defence Secretary and NATO Secretary-General, Lord Robertson, warned that the Prime Minister has shown “corrosive complacency” when it comes to defence. The same man who wrote the Prime Minister’s strategic defence review is now ringing the alarm bell to warn us of the grave consequences of the Government refusing to take the tough choices needed to increase defence spending.
This matters, because if we cannot trust our Prime Minister to tell the whole, full truth about this ambassadorial appointment—a key appointment in Britain’s national security architecture—it calls into question the assurances he gives us on everything else. It calls into question his promises to control taxes, which he has broken, his promises not to raise borrowing, which he has broken, and his promises to back business, protect our veterans, defend our farmers and prioritise growth, all of which he has broken. He has broken them because at his core, he is a man with no idea what he believes. Worse still, he appears to have no interest in doing the job of Prime Minister—just in being the Prime Minister. Curiosity is what drives serious leadership; without curiosity, problems are neither fully understood nor solved.
This whole affair just goes to show why this country is heading in such a woeful direction under the Prime Minister’s incurious regime. His defence yesterday summed it up: he said that no one told him and that he never thought to ask. This is, in his own words, incredible. However, even if we take the Prime Minister at his word—even if we believe the unbelievable—it is no better. He appointed Mandelson despite knowing that he was a threat to our national security; he said that due process was followed, having failed to follow that process himself; and he pressured the Foreign Office into signing off on this appointment. In 2022, the Prime Minister said:
“I believe that if you’re the leader, the buck stops with you. I will always stand up for my team, but I will also take responsibility for everything they do. That is what leadership is.”
How has he taken responsibility?
It is clear that the Prime Minister has no intention of facing up to his mistakes. It is clear now that he is not a leader and that he has no intention of doing the honourable thing.
Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing this debate, and indeed on eviscerating the Prime Minister in her speech. Does she not believe that the sorry souls on the Government Benches should have to put their money with their mouth is, and that there should be a vote of no confidence in this Prime Minister in due course?
Mrs Badenoch
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I think he is right, because I do not believe the Prime Minister has the intention of doing the honourable thing himself, even though that is the standard to which he held everyone else.
The decision as to whether the Prime Minister will ultimately take responsibility for his actions is now up to Labour MPs. We heard many powerful statements from the Government Members yesterday. Labour MPs know that the Prime Minister has let the country down, let Parliament down and let the Labour party down. It is clear to everyone except the Prime Minister himself that he has failed on his own terms. It is clear to the public that he is failing at the job, it is clear to civil servants that he is throwing them under the bus, and it is clear to Members across the House that he is not fit to lead. This cannot go on. This House deserves better. The country deserves better. The Prime Minister is not fit for office. The first duty of any Prime Minister is to keep this country safe. This Prime Minister has put the country’s national security at risk, and he must take responsibility. It is time for him to go.
Mrs Badenoch
I start by thanking Members from across the House for speaking in today’s debate. We heard many powerful speeches, and I am particularly grateful to the many speakers from the Conservative Benches, including my right hon. Friends the Members for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), for Goole and Pocklington (David Davis) and for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) and my hon. Friends the Members for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) and for Weald of Kent (Katie Lam). I found myself nodding along to the speech made by the hon. Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon)—I think that is the first time that has ever happened. We heard very good speeches from the hon. Members for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns), for Lagan Valley (Sorcha Eastwood), for East Wiltshire (Danny Kruger) and for St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire (Ian Sollom) and the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister). Members from all parts of the House have made powerful statements—Members of all parties who know that this story does not add up. We have also heard some statements supporting the Prime Minister, which can only be described as brave.
As I said when I opened the debate, I do feel for the Minister sent here today on the Prime Minister’s behalf. He is the latest person to have to carry the can for the Prime Minister’s mistakes. He could never have given this House the answers it deserved to hear about what is, at its core, a failure of the Prime Minister’s judgment, a failure of the Prime Minister to follow process, and a shocking failure of the Prime Minister to take responsibility for his own mistakes—not just apologise, but take responsibility.
The Minister could not answer the question of why the Prime Minister decided to appoint Peter Mandelson to our most important diplomatic role in full knowledge, based on the due diligence, that Mandelson was a security risk, despite many Members asking it. He could not answer the question of why the Prime Minister chose to ignore the Cabinet Secretary and appoint Peter Mandelson before he received vetting. That was clearly not the process at the time, despite what the Minister has said from the Dispatch Box. He has said that the Government are changing the process, but the advice in November 2024 was to carry out the security vetting, so what process are they changing? Is it one that the Minister is just making up?
The Minister could not answer the question of why the Prime Minister put the Foreign Office under “constant pressure” to approve the appointment. He could not answer the question of why No. 10 was “dismissive” of the entire vetting process. He could not answer the question of why No. 10 also asked for the disgraced Matthew Doyle to be made an ambassador and hid this from the Foreign Secretary, and he could not answer the question of why the Prime Minister sacked Olly Robbins if he was following a process that, as he claims, was in place already—it does not make any sense. He could not answer, because only one man can, and that man is not here today. I do not know whether the Prime Minister thinks he is above answering these questions—we will try again tomorrow. I do not know whether he still somehow thinks that he did nothing wrong, but I will tell the House what I do know. The Prime Minister has put the country’s national security at risk. He is not fit for office, and he must take responsibility. It is time for him to go.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Government’s accountability to the House in connection to the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the United States of America.
Richard Burgon
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. First, I apologise for not having been able to give you advance notice of this point of order. I asked whether the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister could answer a question that I have been trying repeatedly to get an answer to, and I would like your advice on how I can get that answer. The question is whether Morgan McSweeney had security clearance at the time that he was involved in the Mandelson appointment. Could we have an answer to that question, either now or in writing? I would be grateful if you could advise me.