Keir Starmer to face PMQs amid winter fuel payment row and flatlining growth – UK politics live | Politics

Rishi Sunak says he wants to endorse what Starmer said about the Queen, and about the Prince of Wales.

He says Labour MPs voted to remove the winter fuel payment from over 10m pensioners, including those on just £13,000 a year. He asks if Starmer will publish the impact assessement this week.

Starmer says “the fact of the matter is this, they left a £22bn black hole, and they hid it from the OBR”.

Mitigations are in place, he says. And he says the triple lock shows increases in pensions “will outstrip any loss of payments”.

He urges Sunak to apologise for the £22bn black hole.

The Conservatives have criticised Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, for allegedly saying the winter fuel payments cut won’t save any money.

In fact, Reeves did not say that. But, in an interview with GB News, she said she would not mind if the number of pensioners claiming pension credit went up by so much as to wipe out any savings from means-testing the winter fuel payment

In practice, this is unlikely to happen – although the government does want to increase pension credit takeup, which is currently only about 63%.

Asked to admit that a big increase in takeup would wipe out the £1.5bn saving from means-testing the winter fuel payment, Reeves said:

I would prefer the poorest pensioners to get the support that they’re entitled to. I would rather pay money to the poorest pensioners than to continue with a universal winter fuel payment, which meant that some people who didn’t need the money, were getting it and weren’t using it to pay their energy bills.

Now, many people in that situation were already giving that money to charity, whether it’s to food banks or to other good causes, because they recognise that they really shouldn’t, when the public finances are in the state they’re in and when, for some people, they are living day to day and relying on food banks, that it can’t be justified that you continue to pay winter fuel payments people regardless of what their incomes are.

Commenting on the interview, Laura Trott, the shadow secretary to the Treasury, said:

This admission confirms what we all knew, which is that Labour’s winter fuel payments cut for 10 million pensioners is a political choice, not driven by finances.

The Labour MPs were marched through the lobbies yesterday on false pretences by a chancellor who has planned to do this all along.

We’re about half an hour away from PMQs.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

In his speech to the TUC on Monday, Paul Nowak, the general secretary, launched a strong attack on Nigel Farage and other Reform UK leaders, saying they are frauds, not patriots.

Speaking on GB News, where he is a presenter, Farage hit back, claiming this was evidence that the TUC was becoming increasingly political. He said:

Those of a certain age can remember when the TUC was immensely powerful and very, very political.

I’ve just got a sense that this TUC is now starting to flex its political muscles in a way that we haven’t actually seen for decades in this country.

Interesting, isn’t it? I mean, why should the general secretary of the Trade Unions Congress choose to launch an attack on Reform, who may have a lot of voters but only have five members of parliament.

This, I think, is a sign we’re going to see a very political TUC.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate, has brushed aside claims he is too much of a “centrist dad” to win the contest.

When this claim was put to him on Times Radio in an interview this morning, Cleverly replied:

What do you mean by that?

All the polling that I’ve seen shows that I am consistently either the top or near the top when it comes to who is most wanted by the parliamentary party. It’s shown that I’m best placed to take votes back that went to Reform, as well as those that went to other parties.

I’m staunchly conservative. I always have been. I’ve always advocated for lower tax, less regulation, more freedom and strong defence. And how other people want to try and paint me, that’s up to them. But I know where I stand. And I’m a staunchly conservative Conservative.

Amazon’s cloud computing arm will invest £8bn in the UK to build datacentres that support customers in London and the west of England, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has said. Phillip Inman and Heather Stewart have the story.

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow chancellor, says this is continuation of work he was doing when he was running the Treasury.

Glad the Chancellor is carrying on the work done by the previous Conservative government in securing this investment from Amazon Web Services today.

We left the government the fastest growing economy in the G7 – further business investment is key to sustaining that position.

Yesterday around 1,700 prisoners in England and Wales were let out under an early release scheme announced by the government. Ministers say they have had to do this because the prisons are full. But the Conservatives don’t accept this, and the topic is likely to come up at PMQs.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary and Tory leadership candidate, told Sky News this morning that this “mass amnesty” was not necessary. He said:

The reason there was congestion in our prison system is because unlike many other countries during Covid who decided to prioritise the safety of prisoners and deprioritise the safety of the general population, we decided not to do that.

So we kept people in prison. We also kept jury trials. And the combination of those two things meant there was pressure.

We knew there was, and we were dealing with it, but this, basically, mass amnesty is completely the wrong answer.

One reason why Rishi Sunak may raise this is because the Conservatives often take inspiration from the Tory papers and today the Daily Mail has gone in very, very hard on the prisoner release story. Here’s their splash, which is apocalyptic.

But if Sunak does raise the early prisoner release scheme, Starmer will be able to hit back with new evidence that supports the government’s argument that it had no choice because the Tories left jails full to bursting, with no space for new offenders. Anushka Asthana, ITV’s deputy political editor, is about to publish a book about the election campaign and she reveals that Sunak’s prisons policy amounted to – well, praying something would turn up. In a blog last night she wrote:

The last Conservative justice secretary warned Rishi Sunak that if he failed to introduce an early prisoner release scheme (like the one that has been brought in today by Labour) they might need to “get down on their knees and pray” for the criminal justice system.

I can reveal Alex Chalk repeatedly spoke to the then prime minister, as well as officials in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Downing Street, about what he called a “pray-date” that he warned was no later than mid-June.

He feared that after that point overcrowding could get so severe that the police would be forced to introduce Operation Brinker, effectively a one-in-one-out system.

Officials have told me they feared that could result in riots breaking out across the country’s prison estates.

As Jack Simpson reports, Tata Steel is expected to announce the loss of around 2,500 jobs at its plant in Port Talbot. The government is also due to confirm a support package worth £500m for a new electric furnace there. But the jobs are going because the last blast furnace is closing. A statement in the Commons is expected later.

Speaking to broadcasters this morning, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, said the government regarded steel as a “vital part” of the economy. She said:

The steel sector is incredibly important for the UK economy and we’re working in partnership with business and trade unions to help that transition to green steel, which is what businesses are looking for today in construction projects, whilst also preserving jobs.

We’ll be making further detail available later today, but the steel sector is a vital part of our UK economy.

Good morning. Keir Starmer faces PMQs later today. It is only his third as prime minister, but there is not much novelty factor left, perhaps because his non-performative, serious, ‘government of service’ focus has been evident for some years. This afternoon he is likely to face more questions about the decision to means-test the winter fuel payment. But growth figures out this morning are also important – not because they reflect badly on the government (Labour was not even in office at the start of July), but because they illustrate the size of the challenge it faces.

Starmer and Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, say boosting growth is their top priority. But this morning’s figures show that, in July, there was no growth at all. It was the second month in a row where the economy flatlined. Larry Elliott has the details here.

And Julia Kollewe has reaction on her business live blog.

Commenting on the figures, Reeves said:

I am under no illusion about the scale of the challenge we face and I will be honest with the British people that change will not happen overnight.

Two quarters of positive economic growth does not make up for 14 years of stagnation.

That is why we are taking the long-term decisions now to fix the foundations of our economy.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: MPs start voting in the ballot to elect new select committee chairs. It closes at 4pm, and results should be announced in the early evening.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Rishi Sunak at PMQs.

Afternoon: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, is expected to hold a press conference in Kyiv with Antony Blinken, his US counterpart.

After 12.30pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, is expected to make a statement in the Commons about the future of the Tata steelworks in Port Talbot.

After 3.40pm: Peers debate the regulations to means-test the winter fuel payment.

Also, the government is publishes its renters’ rights bill at some point.

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