PM says aide linked to sex offender ‘did not give full account of his actions’ before he was made peer – UK politics live | Politics

I have beefed up the earlier posts, covering the Starmer/Badenoch and Starmer/Davey exchanges, with direct quotes (from PA Media). You may need to refresh the page to get them to appear.

Ayoub Khan (ind) says rubbish is building up “right beneath my very nose”. He is a Birmingham MP, and he is talking about the bin strike. But he has Nigel Farage and the other Reform UK MPs sitting in the row directly in front of him. His joke prompts loud laughted. Richard Tice seems to see the funny side too, but Sarah Pochin looks horribly offended.

Starmer says he hopes the strike gets resolved.

Bob Blackman (Con) asks about the school stabbing in Brent, and asks what the government is doing to remove knife crime.

Starmer thanks Blackman for raising this, and says the government agrees on the need to tackle this.

Tom Tugendhat (Con) says some civil servants are having to take out bridging loans to help them in their retirement.

Starmer says he will look at this.

Daniel Zeichner (Lab) says he agrees with the ambition to make Cambridge the most livable city in Europe. He asks what more the government will do to help this.

Starmer says the government has a growth plan for Cambridge.

James Wild (Con) asks about a foreign offender, sentenced to 10 years in jail for killing three people in a driving incident, who may be released after three years because he is being deported. He says it is wrong for the offender to be released this early.

Starmer says he will look into this.

Preet Kaur Gill (Lab) asks about the Pride in Place programme, and how politics can be a force for good.

Starmer says he has always thought “those with skin in the game make the best decisions about their community”.

Caroline Voaden (Lib Dem) asks if the government will help address the problem of coastal erosion in Devon.

Starmer says Voaden has a meeting with the floods minister on this. The government is investing in flood defences.

Munira Wilson (Lib Dem) asks if the government will back mandatory CCTV in nurseries, and mandatory registers for staff.

Starmer says the government is considering whether CCTV should be mandatory in nursery settings.

Douglas McAllister (Lab) says the government’s plans to cut child poverty will help children in Scotland and the UK generally.

Starmer says government policies will help take almost 100,000 children out of poverty in Scotland.

Steve Race (Lab) asks if the deportation of foreign criminals will be sped up. He refers to a case in his constituency of a woman being murdered by someone whose asylum claim had been turned down, but who had not been removed.

Starmer says this was an appalling case. He says he wants more removals.

Rebecca Smith (Con) says SME companies Plymouth working on defence contracts are having difficulty winning contracts because of procurement rules.

Starmer says he will look at this.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, says Starmer’s line on Doyle not giving a full account of his actions was similar to his line on Mandelson. He says Starmer “appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history”. He asks if the government will publish the guidance given to the Lords appointments commission when it vetted Doyle.

Starmer says a former SNP chief executive is going on trial in nine days’ time.

Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, says MPs should not be discussing live cases.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says that to appoint two friends of paedophiles to the Lords shows catastrophic misjudgment.

Starmer says people have been let down because of austerity, which the Lib Dems supported.

Davey says he “touched a raw nerve”.

The Mandelson scandal shows why a duty of candour is needed. He says the Hillsborough law should be placed on the statute book. Will the PM finally pass that now, ‘“even if it is the last thing he does”.

Starmer says he started working on Hillsborough issues in 2012, when the Lib Dems were in power. They did not pass this legislation, he says.

UPDATE: Davey said:

To appoint one paedophile supporter cannot be excused as ‘misfortune’. To appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgment.

[Starmer] once told this house that when a prime minister refuses to take responsibility, and I quote, ‘it only serves to convince people that things cannot get better, that governments cannot improve people’s lives, and that progress is not possible because politics does not work’.

Does he still agree with himself and does he share my fear that is exactly what’s happening now?

And Starmer replied:

People in this country, millions of people have been let down for years and years and years.

One of the reasons was austerity, which his party supported. He should take accountability and take responsibility for what he has inflicted on this country.

Badenoch says Starmer claims he has never lost a fight. But that is because he never enters the ring.

Starmer rattles through a list of how quickly ministers were replaced under the Tories. They were all useless, he says.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

He hasn’t apologised for appointing Matthew Doyle because he won’t take responsibility. He never does, and they know it.

The prime minister is now telling everyone that he’s never lost a fight. It’s because he won’t step into the ring.

He’s never lost a fight – he’s walked away from welfare reform, he won’t stand up to the unions, he won’t stand up to China, he can’t even stand up to Mauritius.

He’s had three cabinet secretaries, four chiefs of staff, five director of communications in just 18 months and now he is mired in yet another scandal.

Does he ever look in the mirror and ask himself is the real problem staring him in the face?

And Starmer said:

Only four people have ever led the Labour party to victory in a general election. I am one of them.”

She talks about numbers, let us remember – five prime ministers, seven chancellors, eight home secretaries, eight foreign secretaries, 16 housing secretaries, all completely useless, all failed Britain, and this prime minister is clearing up the mess.

She comes here every week, desperately fighting to save her dying party.

I’m fighting to change our country.

Badenoch suggest sleaze will be Starmer’s legacy.

Starmer says his legacy will be changing his party.

He kicked his former leader out of the party. But Badenoch has not done that to Liz Truss, who is now floating “bonkers conspiracy theories”. He says he kicked Truss out of parliament. But Badenoch won’t kick her out of her party.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

Nobody buys it, not even the Labour women, because they know he always puts the Downing Street boys’ club first.

And how dare he criticise us. We weren’t the ones stuffing government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists.

He can’t build a team, he has no plan, he can’t even run his own office let alone the country. He is now dealing with a new scandal of appointing someone who campaigned for a man convicted of having indecent pictures of girls as young as 10, isn’t the prime minister ashamed that that would be his legacy?

And Starmer replied:

My legacy is changing my party and winning a general election.

And I’ll tell you this, I kicked my former leader out of my party. Her former leader, Liz Truss, broke the economy and has descended into bonkers conspiracy theories.

I kicked her out of parliament. She’s too weak to kick her out of their party.

Badenoch says the revelations about Doyle were in the Sunday Times. She says Starmer refusal to accept responsibility is what a prosecutor would call an established pattern of behaviour.

Starmer hits back referring to Tory scandals, including Priti Patel’s bullying in government and Robert Jenrick complaining about the absence of white faces.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

The prime minister pretends not to know about Matthew Doyle. It was on the front page of The Sunday Times. He cannot explain why he gave this man a peerage, and I think they [Labour MPs] should be wondering why they’re still cheering for him after that.

And the prime minister, you know, sometimes likes to claim, as he just did, that he cares about violence against women. The truth is, he only cares about the victims when he’s trying to save his own skin.

They can shake their heads. We saw it with grooming gangs, we saw it with Mandelson, and now we see it with Doyle. Isn’t that what a former prosecutor would call an established pattern of behaviour?

And Starmer replied:

She defended partygate for months and months and months, and even now she says it was overblown. The shadow foreign secretary [Priti Patel] broke the ministerial code by bullying: Boris Johnson kept her; the leader of the opposition promoted her, she sits on her frontbench.

Her former shadow justice secretary [Robert Jenrick] complained about not seeing enough white faces in Birmingham and she was too weak to sack him for racism.

Badenoch says Starmer is deluded if he thinks it is the Tory party that is in trouble.

She asks why Matthew Doyle got a peerage.

Starmer says Doyle “did not give a full account of his actions”. He had the whip withdrawn yesterday.

And he changes the subject, and mentions government policies protecting women.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

The prime minister is demonstrating stratospheric levels of delusion if he thinks the problem is on this side of the house …

The Mandelson episode was not an isolated incident. A few weeks ago he announced a peerage for one Matthew Doyle, his former director of communications.

Immediately after that, the Sunday Times published on the front page that Doyle campaigned for a man charged with child sex offences, yet despite the prime minister knowing this, he gave Doyle a job for life in the House of Lords anyway. Why?

Starmer said:

Matthew Doyle did not give a full account of his actions. I promised my party and my country there will be change, and yesterday I removed the whip from Matthew Doyle.

I’ll tell you what other actions we’ve taken. Along with the safeguarding minister, I and this government have introduced the most far-reaching violence against women and girls strategy, and I’ll tell you what else we’ve done, this government has introduced a pay rise for millions of working class women. What did the leader of the opposition do? She opposed it.

This government is introducing greater protection for women at work. What did the leader of the opposition do? She opposed it, and I’ll tell you what else she opposes, this government removing the disgusting rape clause that they put in place.

Badenoch says Starmer said he had full confidence in McSweeney. On Sunday he sacked him, she says. And last week he defended the cabinet secretary. Now he is being sacked too, she says.

Starmer says Badenoch claimed there would be no more defections from her party, and there were. Her party is dying.

UPDATE: Badenoch said:

Just last week he told us that he had ‘full confidence’ in his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. On Sunday he sacked Morgan McSweeney … last week he was defending the cabinet secretary, now he is sacking him. What changed?

And Starmer replied:

In January she said she had full confidence, 100% confidence she said there’d be no more defections from her party.

48 hours later the shadow foreign minister defected, eight days after that, the former home secretary defected, the only question now is, who’s next? She needs to wake up, her party is dying.