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Lammy tells Tory deputy chair Matt Vickers he should apologise for joking on TV about arson attack on PM’s home
Matt Vickers (Con) asked Lammy about youth unemployment. What was to blame? Was it business rates going up, the jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act, or all of the above?
In response, Lammy condemned Vickers, a deputy chair of the Conservative party, for remarks he made about Keir Starmer in a TV interview yesterday.
Lammy said:
[In the interview] he’s laughing and joking about the arson attack on the prime minister’s home … Not only that, he joined with promoting conspiracies about the attack and laughed along to demeaning homophobic remarks. He should be ashamed of himself. My advice to him is to grow up, apologise and do considerably better.
Key events
Sarah Owen (Lab) asked Lammy about Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate in Makerfield. She said he has said most abortions are for vanity purposes, and endorsed a sexually explicit comment about Carol Vorderman. She said this showed Reform UK’s hypocrisy on women. And they had also welcomed a woman-beater into their number, she said.
Lammy said Owen had made a powerful point. He went on:
The prime minister has rightly put tackling violence against women and girls at the heart of this Labour government.
By contrast, I’ve been utterly appalled by what we’ve heard from the Reform candidate in Makerfield, from vile sexist comments to saying Putin was within his rights to invade Ukraine.
When the Reform leader was asked about them, his answer was, ‘So what?’ This speaks volumes about Reform.
The only way to stop their politics of grievance is to vote Labour.
Lammy tells Tory deputy chair Matt Vickers he should apologise for joking on TV about arson attack on PM’s home
Matt Vickers (Con) asked Lammy about youth unemployment. What was to blame? Was it business rates going up, the jobs tax, the Employment Rights Act, or all of the above?
In response, Lammy condemned Vickers, a deputy chair of the Conservative party, for remarks he made about Keir Starmer in a TV interview yesterday.
Lammy said:
[In the interview] he’s laughing and joking about the arson attack on the prime minister’s home … Not only that, he joined with promoting conspiracies about the attack and laughed along to demeaning homophobic remarks. He should be ashamed of himself. My advice to him is to grow up, apologise and do considerably better.
Daisy Cooper, the deputy Lib Dem leader, asked if the government would back the Lib Dem plan to fund more defence spending through bonds.
Lammy said the government was working with allies to improve defence procurement and funding.
Cooper asked if Lammy agreed it was time for Labour to rip up its red lines on getting closer to the EU.
Lammy said the government was sticking to its red lines, but wanted an SPS deal to improve trade and a youth experience scheme.
Claire Hanna, the SDLP leader, says loyalist paramilitaries were involved in the rioting in Belfast last week. They organised a pogrom, she says. She asks if the government will review how the Northern Ireland executive is handling this problem.
Lammy says what happened in Belfast was racism. He goes on:
We must never go back to 1950s Britain, where my father arrived to signs saying, ‘No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.’
We are focused on bringing people together and that includes providing a further £24m to help tackle paramilitarism and to tackle those inciting hatred online.
And our social cohesion plan is about bringing our communities together.
Coutinho asks, if everything is fine, “why is he here?” She says the government is on life support.
Lammy says he is here because he is standing in for the prime minister.
Coutinho says, if everything is going so well, why did half the defence team resign. And she claims Ed Miliband is out of control.
Lammy says defence spending is higher than it was under the Tories. And he says under the Tories two defence secretaries quit in disgrace (Gavin Williamson and Michael Fallon), and he says Ben Wallace admitted hollowing out the armed forces.
Coutinho says half the cabinet will be getting a pay cut soon. She asks why Ed Miliband ghosted the PM on a matter of national security. (See 11.11am.)
Lammy says Coutinho should not believe everything that she reads in the paper.
The energy department will contribute to the defence investment plan, he says.
And he says energy bills would be higher if the UK had followed Kemi Badenoch’s advice and got involved in the Iran war.
Coutinho claims 1,000 jobs are being lost in the oil industry a month.
She says people from the oil and gas industry are getting new jobs – but they pay only half as much.
Lammy says Coutinho has got her facts wrong.
Oil and gas is coming out of the North Sea 24/7. In the first three months of this year, 52 million barrels of oil came out. 44 million barrels equivalent of gas came out. We’re not turning off the taps. It’s part of a mixed economy.
Coutinho asks how many jobs have been lost in Aberdeen.
Lammy says Coutinho used to champion net zero when she was energy secretary.
He says the government has secured investment “to support more jobs by taking control with renewables, and there are over 100,000 jobs in Scotland, supported by clean power. We’re building on that, led by the Great British Energy, headquartered in Aberdeen.”
Claire Coutinho, who is standing in for Kemi Badenoch, also expresses condolences to the families of Roy Hattersley and Jo Cox, and to the families of the Grenfell Tower victims.
Turning to energy, she asks why Labour is happy to get its oil and gas from Russia or Qatar, but not Aberdeen.
Lammy says Coutinho was a Treasury minister during the biggest fall in living standards for decades.
He goes on:
Don’t believe everything you read in the papers. The prime minister and the energy secretary have been discussing cutting bills by over £100. We’ve got our warm homes plan lifting millions of families out of fuel poverty and securing enough energy projects to power 23m homes.
David Lammy starts by saying he is standing in for the PM.
He says he wants to pay tribute to two “giants of the Labour party”, Roy Hattersley and Jo Cox.
He also recalls the 72 lives lost at Grenfell Tower, saying a safe home for everyone in this country must be their legacy.
And he congratulates Scotland on their first World Cup win for 36 years, and wishes England luck for tonight.
This is from Tom Harwood at GB News on why Claire Coutinho gets the PMQs gig today.
No coincidence the Tories have put up shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho in place of Kemi Badenoch for DPMQs. The Aberdeen South by-election is tomorrow.
Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary, is standing in for Kemi Badenoch, I’m told.
David Lammy to take PMQs
PMQs is starting soon. David Lammy, the deputy PM, will stand in for Keir Starmer, who is still at the G7 in France.
Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.
England ‘only win World Cups under Labour’, says Starmer ahead of tonight’s match
Alexandra Topping
Alexandra Topping is a Guardian political correspondent.
Among the hard questions about the Makerfield byelection and the potential leadership challenge it may spark, Keir Starmer was also asked about the World Cup by reporters at the G7 this morning.
He broke out a smile, and may even have left the door open to giving the UK a bank holiday if England win the World Cup, saying he did not want to jinx Thomas Tuchel’s team ahead of their first game in Dallas on Wednesday. He said:
I’m not gonna jinx the World Cup but, you know, the last time we won the World Cup it was a Labour government.
And so it’s absolutely clear that we only win World Cups under a Labour government.
So let’s hope that this is the next opportunity. He’s got a great squad. This is going to be a good game tonight, probably the hardest in the group games this evening.
So we’re looking forward to seeing the starting lineup what it’s going to be.
And don’t take it that the lineups in the friendlies are going to be the starting lineup for tonight.
Government says ‘age of outsourcing over’ as ministers commit to bringing more services in-house
Ministers have said “the age of outsourcing is over” as the Cabinet Office set out a plan for bringing services like cleaning and security back in-house, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Central government departments will be required under new guidance to produce five-year roadmaps for how they will strengthen their in-house capabilities.
This will reverse years of contracting out functions to outsourcing giants such as G4S, Serco, OCS and ISS, which diminished the state’s capacity to carry out its own services, the Cabinet Office said.
Departments will have to apply a new public interest test before renewing contracts worth more than £1m, focusing on long-term quality rather than short-term cost savings.
Chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones said: “I want to end the era of ‘outsourcing by default’ and build stronger in-house capacity. The British people deserve value for their money – not just the cheapest, short-term option which may not deliver quality in the long-term.
“By introducing this public interest test, and leading the way by looking to bring our cleaners and security staff back in-house when major contracts end in 2028, we are rebuilding our national capacity to deliver high-quality services the British people deserve.”
There is more on the announcement in a written statement here.
Farage does not talk about Brexit because he knows it’s damaged economy, attorney general Lord Hermer says
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, avoids talking about Brexit because he knows the damage it has caused, Lord Hermer, the attorney general, will say in a speech this afternoon.
Hermer is speaking at a European Movement conference and, according to an extract released in advance, he will say:
Strikingly, the politicians who were key proponents of Brexit, and major figures in the campaign to Leave, now appear reluctant to remind us of the promises that they made.
When was the last time you heard Nigel Farage proudly talk about Brexit? Or make the case for the benefits it’s brought Britain?
The reason he has become uncharacteristically quiet about what he used to describe as his crowning achievement is because he knows the damage it caused Britain, our standing in the world, and our economy.
