Starmer defends ‘difficult budget’ and farm inheritance tax changes – UK politics live | Politics
Keir Starmer defends 'difficult budget'
In his first of several interviews on BBC local radio this morning, prime minister Keir Starmer has said “it was a difficult budget.”
“We had to balance the books, and we had to find the money to make sure that we can put our money into our NHS,” saying he thought most people would say it didn’t make sense that the winter fuel payment went to wealthy pensioners who didn’t need it.
Starmer also tried to shoehorn in his messaging on “Respect” orders in a question on energy prices. On the actual issue of energy pricing, Starmer said “in the long term, the way out of this problem is renewable energy, which we can have here in the UK, which is cheaper, and then there’s consistent pricing.”
“When was the last time that you lay awake at night worrying about your bills?” he is asked by Tony Snell of BBC Radio Merseyside. Starmer says he accepts he is in a privileged position and well paid.
Snell brings up Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice, and pensioners dipping into their own pocket to raise £6m for it. “Shouldn’t hospices like this be funded by government, not by cake sales and sponsored walks?” Starmer is asked.
Starmer praises the fundraising effort and says “Sometimes there’s a shortfall, and I’m very grateful to those that have raised money in this particular case.”
Key events
John Darvall of BBC Radio Bristol is up next.
His opening salvo is:
You’re not for millions of hard working farmers or owners of shops, pubs, bars, restaurants, small businesses who are going to see huge [tax] increases. You’re not for keeping millions of pensioners warm. So prime minister, who are you for?
Dominic King from BBC Radio Kent is up next. His first question is about immigration. “You made a promise to smash the gangs. They lead people to the shores of Kent in small boats. Now there have been quite a few prime ministers before you. They failed to sort it so far. Why do you think you can?”
“The last government lost control of the borders,” says Keir Starmer. “And Kent is particularly impacted.”
The prime minister cites an arrest in the Netherlands and says “That happened because our National Crime Agency, which is based in the UK, worked with others in other countries.”
He is quizzed on the low level of fines imposed on people smugglers, but Starmer insists “when we’re able to carry out the arrest at a high level like this, then they result in very significant prison sentences.”
He repeats his line “I refuse to accept the only gangs that apparently can’t be broken are these gangs.”
Starmer says he accepts the situation is “too much for any council to deal with” when asked, and says people are “still waiting because the last government didn’t process any of the claims.”
Kayleigh Poacher from BBC Radio Norfolk has asked the prime minister if the government is “running roughshod all over Norfolk” by imposing solar farms on local land and overruling council planning.
Starmer repeats his earlier lines from the interview with Radio Lincolnshire about the need to move to renewables.
He says:
The prize here is cheaper energy for people across Norfolk. This will be families, businesses, who’ve had a dreadful time of their energy bills over the last two or three years, we’ve got to end that.
Kayleigh Poacher from BBC Radio Norfolk is up now. The first question is about the Norwich Western link road. You can insert your own Alan Partridge pedestrianisation punchlines in the comments.
The broader point Poacher makes is the follow-up question, asking “Is Norfolk going to get the same attention as the Manchesters, as the Londons, when it comes to these kind of big projects and this kind of investment can can we trust on you for that?”
Keir Starmer says he appreciates how important infrastructure is all across the country.
I should point out, by the way, that the prime minister is getting no more than ten or fifteen seconds in between one interview ending and him being moved on to the next one. There isn’t much time for him – or the Guardian live blogger – to even draw a sip of coffee.
“I have a message here,” Kath Stanczyszyn says, “‘I can’t remember Sir Keir promising to terrify and freeze to death the elderly in his manifesto’. That is what people are feeling.”
Keir Starmer, as he did on Radio Merseyside, urges the take-up of pension credit. For the first time in this round of interviews Starmer mentions the £22bn black hole figure which has so irked the opposition. He attempts to sell pensioners losing winter fuel payments as a policy that will improve their experience of the NHS, telling Radio WM listeners:
I also need to make clear … we had to raise money for in this budget is to pay for the NHS, which is on its knees, and many, many pensioners and older people will be on the waiting list for operations which has a huge impact on their lives. And my job is to make sure we’re putting the money into the NHS, which we did at the budget, to bring those waiting lists down and to make sure we’ve got an NHS which older people can absolutely rely on, and that’s not the case at the moment.
Kath Stanczyszyn at Radio WM in the West Midlands is up next. The first question is about the Birmingham pub bombings in 1974, asking why there has never been a public inquiry about it. The question is played in via a clip of a relative of someone killed aged 18 in the bombing.
Keir Starmer says “we’ll continue to engage with them.”
Stanczyszyn presses further “how long will it take?”
“We’ll try to come to a decision as quickly possible,” Starmer says.
“I don’t want to commit to a date until I’m sure, in my own mind, that we can keep to it,” he replies when pressed on whether he could give a date before the 51st anniversary.
This has been quite sticky for Starmer because he clearly doesn’t want to give a definitive answer, but he gets an easier get out at the end, when asked if he is one of those politicians who is worried about evidence coming out, as it allows him to fall back on his history as the DPP. He says:
No, I’ve fought for justice all my life. Before I was a politician, I was a lawyer, and was very often representing victims and campaigners in any number of injustices. And therefore I bring that approach to it, we must always get to the bottom of what has happened in awful incidents, and there should be nothing that stops us getting to the bottom of those questions.
The next question is about plans for pylons on rural land. Keir Starmer is asked wouldn’t it be better with underground cabling?
Starmer says:
Yes, in the sense that they’re not obviously overground, but the cost, then, is very, very high. People listening to this will want to know that their energy bills are coming down. And what I don’t want to do is to say to them, well, we’ve gone to renewable energy, but we’ve taken the most expensive route to get there, so I’m afraid your bill is going up.
The prime minister is now being challenged about whether he would be happy having 1,000 solar panels in his garden. As I said, these kind of interviews are pretty tricky to prepare form the questions can be quite unpredictible.
Sean Dunderdale on BBC Radio Lincolnshire is next and the opening question is “Do you have a problem with Lincolnshire, have the people of Lincolnshire upset you in any way? Because you seem to have upset an awful lot of people in the county since you’re elected back in July.”
The first question is about farmers and family farms and inheritance tax.
Keir Starmer begins his reply by saying:
Firstly, in the budget, we allocated £5bn pounds over the next two years to farming. That’s the single biggest amount of money into sustainable food production. That’s hugely important for farmers. Plus money for dealing with flooding, which is always a problem, and the outbreak of disease.
Starmer is trying to argue about the £3m threshold, saying “I do understand the concern.”
A clip is played in of a local farmer asking Starmer to commit to an independent review of the Treasury figures around IHT on farmland. Starmer offers to look into her individual case.
On this issue I very much defer to my colleague Helena Horton’s explainer …
Keir Starmer defends 'difficult budget'
In his first of several interviews on BBC local radio this morning, prime minister Keir Starmer has said “it was a difficult budget.”
“We had to balance the books, and we had to find the money to make sure that we can put our money into our NHS,” saying he thought most people would say it didn’t make sense that the winter fuel payment went to wealthy pensioners who didn’t need it.
Starmer also tried to shoehorn in his messaging on “Respect” orders in a question on energy prices. On the actual issue of energy pricing, Starmer said “in the long term, the way out of this problem is renewable energy, which we can have here in the UK, which is cheaper, and then there’s consistent pricing.”
“When was the last time that you lay awake at night worrying about your bills?” he is asked by Tony Snell of BBC Radio Merseyside. Starmer says he accepts he is in a privileged position and well paid.
Snell brings up Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice, and pensioners dipping into their own pocket to raise £6m for it. “Shouldn’t hospices like this be funded by government, not by cake sales and sponsored walks?” Starmer is asked.
Starmer praises the fundraising effort and says “Sometimes there’s a shortfall, and I’m very grateful to those that have raised money in this particular case.”
If you want to listen to these Keir Starmer regional radio interviews, the BBC appears to have helpfully gathered them altogether in one stream. The first question is about winter fuel payments.
Keir Starmer to face regional BBC radio interview round
Keir Starmer will shortly be appearing across a range of different BBC local radio stations. This can sometimes be a tricky assignment to prepare for, with the possibility he will get ambushed with local case studies on any number of contentious issues from the first few months of his government.
The prime minister arguably performs better in interviews when faced with tricky questions channelling the public than his predecessors Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss did, but we can probably expect to hear a lot about “the tough choices” Labour are making as a result of the financial situation and state of public services they inherited from the Tories. I will listen in and bring you the key lines as they emerge.
Tony Snell will be interviewing him first on BBC Radio Mersyside. He’s currently playing Material Girl by Madonna.
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, based in Glasgow
The SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has u-turned on his plan to “double job” by sitting in Holyrood and the Commons after a furious backlash.
In a statement released on Thursday evening Flynn said bluntly “Hands up, I’ve got this one wrong and won’t be pursuing a dual mandate.”
The ambitious Aberdeen South MP had faced fierce criticism from his colleagues as well as opposition MSPs after he announced that he was planning to stand for the Holyrood seat of Aberdeen South and North Kincardine, held by his SNP colleague Audrey Nicoll. Flynn also confirmed he would aim to hold his Westminster seat until the next general election, due in 2029, but would not accept two salaries.
The SNP has previously been highly critical of the last Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross for holding seats in both parliaments, and Flynn’s colleagues were privately angry at the implication that a Holyrood position does not amount to a full-time job as well as what many see as the high-handed way he’s attempting to oust a respected female colleague.
As we reported yesterday, first minister John Swinney warned the row was becoming a distraction and last night Flynn saw the writing on the wall, insisting his aim was “to save the public purse from unnecessary strain by potentially overlapping the role of an MP and an MSP for a short period” and that he would now consider his options. It’s a pretty embarrassing climbdown and misjudgement for someone considered a future leader by some in the party.
On assisted dying, YouGov has published some polling this morning, and says its data has “consistently shown strong, bipartisan, support for legalising assisted dying for the terminally ill.”
YouGov writes:
Our study shows that 73% of Britons believe that – in principle – assisted dying should be legal in the UK, compared to only 13% who say it should not.
Firm majorities across all demographic groups are in favour of legalising assisted dying, with relatively little difference between them. Reform UK voters and Conservatives are more likely to be opposed (17-20%) than Labour and Lib Dem voters (8-10%), but more than two-thirds of each voting group are in favour.
My colleague, senior political correspondent Peter Walker, notes on social media that “It’s quite rare to get such broad and strong support for any political measure, particularly something as controversial as this. Wonder if it could influence some undecided MPs ahead of next week’s vote, who are otherwise facing the noise of their email inbox.”
MPs will have a free vote on assisted dying in the Commons, and this morning home secretary Yvette Cooper has indicated she supports a change in the law on assisted dying, but will follow debate on this particular bill closely.
She told Good Morning Britain viewers:
I have voted for change in the past. These are important and difficult issues, and I haven’t changed my view on the principles of this issue.
But I do also recognise that there is a detailed debate to be had on the detail of legislation on the kinds of safeguards and things that need to be in place.
I think I last voted on this about 20 years ago and so I have supported the principle in the past and continue to believe that change is needed. But we do need to have that debate on the detail, and I’ll continue to follow that debate next Friday.
My colleague Graeme Wearden on our business live blog has some bad news for Chancellor Rachel Reeves:
UK business output is contracting this month for the first time in over a year, as the tax increases announced in last month’s budget hit companies.
Data firm S&P Global says British firms are giving “a clear thumbs down” to the measures in Rachel Reeves’s first budget, such as the increase in employers’ national insurance contributions.
Its flash UK PMI Composite Output Index, which tracks activity across the UK economy, has dropped to a 13-month low of 49.9 this month, down from October’s 51.8. That shows a marginal contraction (50 points = stagnation).
You can follow developments with that with Graeme …
Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has also reacted to those figures about social care in England from the Nuffield Trust that Patrick Butler has reported on.
Davey said:
These damning figures lay bare the devastating impact of the national insurance hike on social care. The government must immediately do the right thing and exempt care providers from this ill-thought through tax hike.
This hit is creating a perfect storm for a care sector already damaged by the Conservative party’s neglect. Now there is a real danger small care providers will simply not survive.
Ultimately, it’s people in care who will suffer the consequences. The Chancellor must urgently act to help our social care sector before it’s too late.
Patrick Butler
Patrick Butler is the Guardian’s social policy editor
Large parts of England’s adult social care market face collapse as a result of tax and wage rises announced in the budget, with devastating consequences for vulnerable and older people who rely on care services, a leading thinktank has warned.
The Nuffield Trust said that while the government has consistently spoken of its long term ambition to reform the social care sector, there may be “little of it left” to reform unless it takes urgent action to stabilise the care market financially.
The care sector faced an extra £2.8bn cost burden from next April, the trust estimated, adding most care providers will struggle to shoulder their share of the bill, and at least £1bn extra was needed to keep the market afloat.
Read more of Patrick Butler’s report here: Large parts of adult social care market in England face collapse, thinktank warns
During her interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Yvette Cooper stressed that greater international cooperational was needed to tackle people smugglers.
She said what was being seen was “the complex network of criminal gangs operating right across Europe.”
She continued:
That is why we have set out an approach with new border security commands, with also a big increase in international cooperation and the work that we are doing with other countries. I think that is immensely important.
She argued that after a large increase in Channel crossings in the first half of the year under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, “that has stabilised now” and “is still down compared to two years ago, 2022.”
Of the crossings, she said they are “really dangerous” and “deeply damaging,” continuing:
It undermines border security, puts lives at risk, and that’s why we’ve been so clear about needing to take action against these criminal gangs, but also to work with other countries right across Europe on the issues that countries are facing.
Co-leader of the Green party of England and Wales, Adrian Ramsay, has been critical of the rise in energy bills. He said:
This energy price cap news will fuel winter fears for millions, including those set to lose their winter fuel allowance. We need more than ever to cut energy use and bills with a nationwide home insulation programme.
