Oral Answers to Questions

Rishi Sunak Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Leader of the Opposition.

[Rishi Sunak (Richmond and Northallerton) (Con)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to the Grenfell community. We will rightly discuss that important issue shortly after Prime Minister’s questions. I also join him in congratulating our record-breaking Olympians and Paralympians on everything that they have achieved. Lastly, I pay tribute to the hard work, bravery and dedication of our police. This summer, in challenging circumstances, they served our communities commendably and kept us all safe.

Government is about making choices, and the new Prime Minister has made a choice: he has chosen to take the winter fuel allowance away from low-income pensioners and give that money to certain unionised workforces in inflation-busting pay rises. Could I ask the Prime Minister, why did he choose train drivers over Britain’s vulnerable pensioners?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government were elected to clear up the mess left by the Conservative party, and to bring about the change that the country desperately needs. Our first job was to audit the books, and what we found was a £22 billion black hole. It is no good their complaining. Richard Hughes, the chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility, was very clear: he described it as

“one of the largest year-ahead overspends against…forecasts outside of the pandemic”.

Those are his words. We have had to take tough decisions to stabilise the economy and repair the damage, including targeting winter fuel payments while protecting pensioners. Some 800,000 pensioners are not taking up pension credit, and we intend to turn that around. We will align housing benefit and pension credit—something the previous Government deferred year after year—and, because of our commitment to the triple lock, pensions are projected to increase by over £1,000 in the next five years.

[Rishi Sunak]

The Prime Minister also inherited inflation back at target, interest rates being cut, low unemployment and, indeed, the fastest-growing economy in the G7. But that is not the point, because the Prime Minister now has to start taking responsibility for his own decisions. If, as he says, the public finances are a priority, it was his decision, and his alone, to award a train driver on £65,000 a pay rise of almost £10,000, and it was also his decision that a pensioner living on just £13,000 will have their winter fuel allowance removed. Can the Prime Minister explain to Britain’s low-income pensioners why he has taken money away from them while at the same time giving more money to highly paid train drivers?

[The Prime Minister]

We spent the whole election with the right hon. Gentleman trying to tell the country that everything was fine, and this is the result the Conservatives got: a massive Labour mandate to change the country. If he carries on pretending everything is fine for ordinary people across the country, his party will be in opposition for a very long time. I remind him that we inherited absolute chaos from the Conservatives. We lost an average of 3 million working days a year to strikes under his watch. You cannot fix the economy if the trains do not work, and you cannot fix the economy if the NHS is not working.

When it comes to winter fuel payments, the Conservatives are having a competition, as I understand. They will be voting later on today. From the shadow housing Minister, the right hon. Member for North West Essex (Mrs Badenoch), we found this—she is the favourite, I think, and some Conservative Members will probably be voting for her this afternoon. She said:

“I have people in my constituency telling me that they don’t need the winter fuel payments…Why do we not have a more sophisticated mechanism for means-testing?”.

She is the favourite, I think, in the contest the Conservatives are having.

[Rishi Sunak]

The Prime Minister talked about the public finances. The UK’s public finances are more robust than those of almost any other major advanced economy. Here we have it: he inherited a lower deficit than France, America, Italy—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. When I point at someone to be quiet, I mean it. I do not need a reaction back like that.

[Rishi Sunak]

The UK currently has a lower deficit than France, America, Italy and Japan; it has the second-lowest debt in the entire G7. The Prime Minister opposed every difficult decision that we took to deliver that, so I certainly am not going to take any lectures from him on that score. He talked about protecting ordinary people; last year, under the Conservative Government, a low-income pensioner with just £13,000 received not only the winter fuel payment, but hundreds of pounds of additional cost of living support, both of which he has now scrapped. Age UK has said that cutting the winter fuel allowance is “the wrong policy”, and only this morning we have learned that the vast majority of the poorest pensioners—pensioners in poverty—will see that vital support removed. Can the Prime Minister tell the House very specifically, and the pensioners who are watching, how much less support a pensioner on £13,000 will receive this winter?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman talks about tough decisions. It is tough to inherit a £22 billion black hole, which the OBR did not—[Interruption.] That is the inheritance; that is what the Conservatives left. Back when they were in government, they would pretend that it was not there. They would have walked past it and put it in the long grass. We are not going to do that, because we were elected to change this country for the better and stabilise our economy. No Prime Minister wants to do what we have to do in relation to the winter fuel allowance, but we have to take the tough decision to stabilise our economy to ensure that we can grow it for the future. As I have said, we are working hard on pension credit. We are aligning it with housing benefit, which they did not do for years, and over five years it has a projected increase of up to £1,000 for those on pensions—tough decisions that they ducked.

[Rishi Sunak]

The Government do not have to choose to take money off low-income pensioners in order to give it to highly paid train drivers. That is a choice that the Prime Minister has made, and it will be clear to any pensioners watching that he simply cannot explain why he has made that choice.

Turning to another important issue, the Government have suspended 30 of the UK’s 350 arms export licences to Israel. It is a decision that the Chief Rabbi says “beggars belief” and will “encourage our shared enemies”. Can the Prime Minister therefore explain how his decision will help to secure the release of the 101 hostages still being held by Hamas?

[The Prime Minister]

May I start by saying that I think the whole House will be shocked by the horrific killing of six hostages in the last few days? I know that I speak for the whole House when I say that. The remaining hostages must be released, and we need a ceasefire to ensure that that can happen, that desperately needed aid can get into the region, and that we can begin the path to a two-state solution.

The right hon. Gentleman asks how we arrived at this decision. He knows very well, because the legal framework is clear. The latest guidance was issued in 2021, under his Government, and that means that licences have to be kept under review, as they were by his Government. I think he probably knows the advice that was given to his Government; he understands the framework. We have carried out the review in the same way and come to a clear legal conclusion, and shared that conclusion and assessment with Parliament.

We will, of course, continue to stand by Israel’s right to self-defence, but it is important that we are a country committed to the international rule of law. That gives us the strength of argument in discussion with our allies on important issues. This is a difficult issue—I recognise that—but it is a legal decision, not a policy decision. The Leader of the Opposition knows the framework—[Interruption.] The Conservatives shout, but they issued the guidance and they know what the test is. That test has been assessed. We have come to a conclusion, and we have put that before the House for it to consider.

[Rishi Sunak]

I appreciate the Prime Minister’s answer, but he will know that decisions like this also have important and broader geopolitical implications. He mentioned allies. It is essential that we maintain transatlantic unity in the face of terrorist threats and avoid any perception of splits between our two nations. Can he therefore update the House, or tell it what engagement he had with the United States prior to taking this significant decision?

[The Prime Minister]

I acknowledge the importance of working with our allies on all issues, as we have been doing, as I was able to make very clear at the NATO summit that I attended in the early summer. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman and the House would expect, we have talked this through with our allies. They understand; they have a different legal system. That is the point they made. [Interruption.] The shadow Foreign Secretary chunters. This is a serious issue and it requires serious consideration. The Leader of the Opposition knows the legal framework very well. He also knows that applying the framework—the facts of that framework—and arriving at a decision does not permit me to simply say, “I am not going to implement the legal decision or conclusion that has been reached.” I do not think he is really inviting me to do that.

[Rishi Sunak]

These decisions have not only geopolitical consequences but emotional ones. The Prime Minister took that action on the very same day as the funerals of Israeli hostages murdered by Hamas—something that the Board of Deputies of British Jews described as

“a terrible, terrible message to be sending”.

I hope the Prime Minister understands the hurt that has been caused. Will he take this opportunity to reassure Israel and the Jewish community that the United Kingdom and this House stand behind Israel and its right to self-defence?

[The Prime Minister]

Let me be very clear, as I have said before and I say again: we recognise and support Israel’s right of self-defence, and we have taken action in support of that right of self-defence. I have made that repeatedly clear in all my engagements with Israel, across the region and with all our allies; I stand by that.

In relation to licences, this is not an Israel issue; it is the framework for all licences that must be kept under review. It is the same test for all licences, as the Prime Minister knows, and we have applied the law to the facts and come to a legal conclusion. I do not think the Prime Minister—[Interruption.] I do not think the Leader of the Opposition is really inviting me to put that to one side. This is a serious issue; we either comply with international law or we do not. We have strength in our arguments only because we comply with international law. I appreciate that the Conservative party did not think that international law mattered, and that is why we got into the pickle that we did.