Starmer attacks Sunak over NHS ‘chaos’ as four more ambulance strikes announced – UK politics live | Politics

At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s press secretary said that Rishi Sunak has full confidence in the Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, and takes him “at his word” over allegations around his tax affairs.

At PMQs, asked about the report that Zahawi has paid millions to settle a tax dispute, Sunak said Zahawi has “addressed this matter in full”. In fact, Zahawi has not confirmed the payments, or answered questions about the story, but just issued a statement saying he pays his taxes.

The PM’s press secretary defended this, saying Zahawi “has spoken and been transparent with HMRC”.

Asked if Sunak considered the matter closed, she said:

I don’t know whether the prime minister has reviewed it in full, but I do know that he takes Nadhim Zahawi at his word.

She also said that Sunak intended to publish his own tax return shortly.

During the urgent question earlier on the battery company Britishvolt going into administration, Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, said the government should take some responsibility. He said:

When the Britishvolt site was first announced in 2019 with the promise to build the UK’s second ever gigafactory and create 8,000 jobs in Northumberland, it was lauded by the government as their flagship example of levelling up.

Government ministers fell over themselves to take the credit and so now they must also accept some accountability for its failure, because, much like their levelling up strategy, all we have been left with is an empty space instead of what was promised.

The collapse of Britishvolt into administration is in no uncertain terms a disaster for the UK car industry, but what is even more worrying is that it’s a symptom of a much wider failure.

In response, Graham Stuart, the energy minister, said the government was “entirely committed to the future of the automotive industry and promoting EV [electric vehicle] capability”.

But he said Britishvolt did not get funding from the government’s automotive transformation fund (ATF) because that funding was conditional on the firm also attracting private investment, which did not happen.

The Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle today apologised for describing a contribution from a Conservative backbencher as “one of the worst transphobic, dog-whistle speeches that I have heard in an awful long time”.

Russell-Moyle made the comment yesterday, as he was responding to a speech by Miriam Cates in which she said the Scottish gender recognition reform (GRR) bill could be exploited by “predators”.

Raising a point of order today, Russell-Moyle said he had written to Cates to apologise. He went on:

I stand by the words that I said and I profoundly disagree with the comments the honourable member made.

But our job as MPs is to channel passion and anger into considered debate to win our arguments. In this case, the trans community and devolution.

I recognise that I failed to control that passion during what was an emotional debate.

I should have expressed my deep disagreement on what I believe is an abhorrent view in a more appropriate way.

I want to particularly apologise to Madam deputy speaker [Dame Rosie Winterton] who had to preside over the debate.

In her speech Cates said predators would exploit the GRR bill. She said:

We should not be asking how easy it is for someone who is uncomfortable with their sex to obtain a GRC [gender recognition certificate]; we should be asking how easy it is for a predator to get access to children. The bill would make it vastly easier.

In response, Russell-Moyle said:

That speech was probably one of the worst transphobic dog-whistle speeches I have heard in an awfully long time. Linking the bill with predators is, frankly, disgusting, and you should be ashamed.

Teaching unions report ‘no progress’ after further talks with education secretary

Sally Weale

Talks between the teaching unions and the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, broke up after just over an hour this morning, with unions reporting zero progress.

Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU) whose members have voted for strike action, said the meeting was “constructive” and the secretary of state had been keen to talk about issues affecting teachers such as workload and recruitment and retention.

There was however no discussion about an improved pay deal, either this year or next. “I’m happy to talk about all these other issues,” said Bousted, “but we’re not talking about things that will resolve the pay dispute.” The NEU is due to begin seven days of strike action on 1 February.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said:

While it is good that these talks are continuing, and we are fully supportive of an ongoing dialogue, we have to report that no progress was made at this meeting and we are no nearer a solution.

There remained three unresolved issues, Barton said. He explained:

The first is the inadequacy of the pay award in this academic year, which at 5% for most teachers and leaders is well below inflation, currently running at 13.4% on the retail prices index measure and 10.5% on the consumer prices index measure. The fact that the pay award was not fully funded by the government has piled more financial pressure on to school leaders and governors.

The second is next year’s pay award which the education secretary has already sought to constrain in her remit letter to the pay review body, where she says it is particularly important to have regard to the government’s inflation target – which at 2% would represent yet another substantial below-inflation pay award.

The third is the unsustainable workload of leaders and teachers. This is a direct consequence of the insufficiency of government funding to education over the past 12 years which has left staff having to do more work with fewer resources.

Nobody wants to see industrial action, but it is not surprising that members of the NEU have voted in favour of strike action in these circumstances. Teacher shortages are a critical issue for virtually every school and college in the country and are causing educational damage on a daily basis. The government must do better for teachers, leaders and pupils.

George Eustice says he’s standing down at next election

Aletha Adu

George Eustice has become the latest Conservative MP to announce their plans to step down from politics. The former environment minister has represented the Camborne & Redruth constituency in Cornwall since 2010.

In a statement Eustice said:

By the time of the next election, I will have been in politics for 25 years, including almost 15 years as a member of parliament.

I will also be 53 and I want the opportunity to do a final career outside politics, so have decided not to seek re-election. This has been a difficult decision for me.

I feel a deep bond to the area where my family have lived for over 400 years and it has been an honour to represent my home towns, but it is important that the Conservatives are able to select a new candidate in good time.

Eustice had been predicted to lose his seat to Labour, according to a number of pollsters. In 2019 he had a majority of 8,700.

More than a dozen Tory MPs have now announced they will be stepping down, from Sajid Javid to the 29-year-old Dehenna Davison, once dubbed a rising star.

The GMB union has announced four more days of ambulance strikes in February and March. The union says more than 10,000 of its ambulance staff members will strike on 6 and 20 February, and 6 and 20 March.

The strikes will affect the following regions in England: south-west; south-east; north-west; south-central; north-east; east Midlands; and Yorkshire. Wales will be affected too.

In addition, GMB ambulance staff in the West Midlands will strike on 23 January, and in the north-west on 24 January.

Rachel Harrison, the GMB’s national secretary, said:

GMB’s ambulance workers are angry. In their own words ‘they are done’.

Our message to the government is clear – talk pay now.

Ministers have made things worse by demonising the ambulance workers who provided life and limb cover on strike days – playing political games with their scaremongering.

The only way to solve this dispute is a proper pay offer.

But it seems the cold, dead hands of the Number 10 and 11 Downing Street are stopping this from happening.

In the face of government inaction, we are left with no choice but industrial action.

By “demonising ambulance workers”, Harrison is referring to ministers criticising health unions for not negotiating emergency cover arrangements for strike days at a national level. The unions say they negotiated those deals locally, trust by trust, because that is how staff are employed.

Among the many reasons to be outraged about the condition of public services in Britain at the moment (yesterday we learned Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, seems to have joined the 57% of people who think “nothing works any more”), none is more powerful than the fact that you can no longer rely on an ambulance to turn up on time in an emergency. Keir Starmer focused on that today and it enabled him to produce one of his most powerful PMQs demolition jobs yet.

The statistics did most of the work, but what made this particularly effective was the way Starmer set out his case. First, a pithy question (which Sunak refused to answer):

It’s three minutes past 12. If somebody phones 999 now because they have chest pains and fear it might be a heart attack, when would the prime minister expect an ambulance to arrive?

This question – by anchoring itself in the present, at PMQs in 12.03pm – gave the exchanges an immediacy they never normally have, and Starmer followed that up with more questions that almost dramatised his scenario.

If our heart attack victim had called for an ambulance in Peterborough at 12.03pm it wouldn’t arrive until 2:10pm. These are our constituents waiting for ambulances I’m talking about …

If they were in Northampton it wouldn’t arrive until 2.20pm, if they were in Plymouth it wouldn’t arrive until 2.40pm.

In his third question, Starmer was elaborating on his narrative.

By 1pm our heart attack victim is in a bad way, sweaty, dizzy, chest tightening … by that time they should be getting treatment, but an hour after they’ve called 999 they’re still lying there, waiting, listening to the clock tick.

And then came the reveal; Starmer said this wasn’t hypothetical, “this is real life”. He was talking about Stephanie, 26, a cancer patient from Plymouth, who died waiting for an ambulance, even thought she only lived two miles from the hospital.

For a prime minister on the receiving end of a barrage like this, there is no winning strategy. The best option is full-on empathy, laced with humility and sometimes apology. Tony Blair or David Cameron could pull this sort of thing off. But Sunak – who has yet to shake off the impression that he’s a geek management consultant hired to clear up the appalling mess left by the outgoing administration – cannot match them in emotional intelligence, and instead he resorted to going on the attack over Labour’s failure to back the anti-strikes bill.

It might not be an entirely hopeless strategy. According to the polls, public support for the legislation is quite strong. But the public don’t blame the unions for the crisis in the NHS, and minimum service levels on strike days won’t help anyone like Stephanie who needs minimum services on non-strike days too. The public seem to get this, and today it was Starmer who was speaking up for what they think.