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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Mikey Smith

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner answer YOUR questions - from knife crime to WASPI women

Last week we asked you to send in your questions for Labour leader Keir Starmer and Deputy leader Angela Rayner.

Almost 300 of you wrote in - and we did our best to whittle them down to preserve the widest possible range of issues you said were important to you.

Some questions have been edited for length and clarity, while preserving the spirit and intention of the question.

And in some cases many of you asked the same or similar questions, so we combined them into one so we cover as much ground as possible.

Here's how Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner tackled Mirror readers' burning questions:

RHYS - Cardiff: If there was just one Tory policy you could abolish right now, and it could never be brought back, what would it be?

STARMER: Their refusal to have a proper windfall tax. It's something that's urgent now, to drive down the cost of living.

PAUL: As a caring party, should Labour be looking at helping poor families with the high cost of funerals?

RAYNER: Poverty at that time when you're in the most tragic of circumstances is no good for anybody. And it's, it's really challenging for people. So we recognise that.

STARMER: But we need to get further than that. Because funeral costs are high, and they come at a very difficult time for families. But almost every bill is too high.

We absolutely had to tackle cost living crisis. This is the single most relevant and urgent problem that the government has caused. We all know that there's been COVID and Ukraine, but this country is doing worse than other countries because of the failure of this government over 13 years.

Almost 300 readers wrote in with their questions (CHRIS NEILL)

SANDRA: Will your government find a way to remove the need for food banks?

STARMER: Yes, I hope so.

RAYNER: Otherwise what's the point? I was a free school meals kid. And I had my son when I was a teenage mum. I didn't have to go to a food bank, to feed and clothe and be able to get nappies for my child. The frustration for me is a lot of Conservatives don't get that they don't understand the humiliation and how people feel when they have to go and ask for help in those circumstances. Nobody in work in the UK should have to go to those circumstances where they can't afford to feed their family.

STARMER: Whether it's the way people are treated at work, whether it's the food banks, whether it's struggling to pay the bills, the common theme running through these questions are those Labour values. And they're the values that we will have, in our mind, when we make decisions in government.

MICHAELA - Leeds: What are Labour’s policies on gun and knife crime?

STARMER: On gun and knife crime, we will tackle it head on. As with the last Labour government, we tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime. You can buy zombie knives online as easily as you can buy a football. That is totally wrong. The government has failed to act.

RAYNER: We've got to focus on Neighbourhood Policing, as well. In order to prevent crime, you've got to have that interaction with the community. And you've got to have the bobbies on the beat, and you've got to have that Neighbourhood Policing model.

VARIOUS READERS: Do you stand by Labour's pledge to provide women hit by the state pension age rise with a compensation payment?

STARMER: We've met many of these women and campaigners. And our hearts go out to them. They've been put in an awful position, a position they shouldn't be put in. It's a huge injustice. And I think there's a court case going on at the moment. So I'll have to wait and see what the outcome of that is.

DOUG and MARTIN: Why does Labour want to stop foreign criminals being deported and what would Labour do to stop illegal immigration, whether by small boats, lorries or otherwise? The Conservatives have been trying for years but to no avail.

STARMER: We're very clear that we want to deport remove anybody who shouldn't be here. And that's exactly what we did when we were in power. It's exactly what we'll do. Nobody should be making that journey across the channel. But in order to make that happen, you've got to have a policy that is actually going to stack up and it's going to work. And that means tackling the criminal gangs who are driving this awful trade, but also dealing with applications here. All we've got from the government is gimmicks that won't work rather than action that will work. One of the most shocking statistics is that of all those people who arrived by small boats in the last 12 months or so, only 1% of their application have been processed. So for the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, when they're talking about asylum, they need to look in the mirror and explain to the country why they broke the asylum system.

MARTIN - Bracknell: Are you committed to abolishing the House of Lords?

STARMER: Yes, we are. I don't think anybody can really defend the House of Lords. And that's why we set out plans to abolish it and have a different second chamber that I think would work much better. The proposal on the table is capable being implemented in the first five years.

MARTIN - Bracknell: In what circumstances would you be prepared to "push the nuclear button"?

STARMER: That is not a question that any aspiring Prime Minister would answer. Yes has to be the answer, because the deterrent doesn't work if you're not prepared to use it.

But in answer to the question, in what circumstances, that's not that's not a question that anybody who aspires to be Prime Minister should answer. The deterrent has to be effective and to be effective. It has to be, you know, you have to have a prime minister who's prepared to use it.

MARIANNE - Hyde: Would Labour demand that those companies whoprofited from useless and undelivered PPE supplies pay back the money they were paid?

STARMER: There's a huge amount billions of pounds were wasted on contracts that shouldn't have been given and/or were not delivered upon. And the government has just written it off. We're not the business of writing off taxpayers money like that. That money could be used for our public services, that money could be used for our health service. So we'll come down really hard on anybody wastes taxpayers money.

RAYNER: Yeah, the government have let him off the hook. And we've also got our procurement strategy, which is again about how we write a ‘clawback’ into contracts - which would mean that that money that if contracts weren't fulfilled, and we claw back that money.

DEBBIE: Labour you need to be more full-force and get the Tories to answer for the mess we are in

JAMES - Hamburg: Why are you so dependant on notes in PMQs? Furious eye contact should be the order of the day! Didn't they teach you that at school?

STARMER: Never been taught furious eye contact in school. But maybe we'll try it next time. Okay.

RAYNER: I do get quite passionate at the despatch box, but it's because I feel like people need to see action. They don't want to see theatre. They want to see action.

SMITH: Are you going to miss Dominic Raab?

RAYNER: Probably not. No. Probably not. I'm looking forward to my new venture.

SMITH: Presumably, it'll be Oliver Dowden?

RAYNER: Yes. The Battle of the gingers. I'll let you read this decide which side they're on.

Keir Starmer vowed to abolish the House of Lords (CHRIS NEILL)

ISAAC: You’ve gone back on - or ‘adapted’ - a number of promises you made during your leadership campaign. Why should the British people trust Labour’s manifesto?

STARMER: Those pledges are really important. And they remain really important. Some of them have to be adapted to the current circumstances. I think that's common sense. And I think there'd be far more criticism if we disregarded COVID and Ukraine and the huge damage that the government has done to our economy.

VICTOR from St Leonards on Sea and JANA: Would you ever consider re-joining the EU? And how exactly are you going to make Brexit work?

STARMER: Firstly, there's no case for rejoining the EU. But we do need a better deal. The public was sold the deal on the basis that it was oven ready, and it transpires it's half baked. So we've got to get a better deal.

JOSH: Transgender people are currently in a precarious position in our country. What will you do to ensure trans people feel secure in our country?

CHRIS - Sunderland: How did you feel or react when Rosie Duffield reported that she felt isolated, hounded, and harassed within the Labour party and when she was jeered by her own colleagues in parliament?

STARMER: I'll start this by saying that these issues have to be approached with tolerance and respect.

And all communities should feel secure and respected. And that includes the trans community.

Now, obviously, the Labour Party has fought for women's rights for many, many years, and many of the advances we've had in women's rights have been as a result of the arguments and the fights that the Labour Party has put, and there are many to come. And nobody wants to see those rolled back.

So this is about tolerance. It's about respect. And I want all communities, including the trans community to feel secure and respected.

RAYNER: It saddens me that Rosie feels that way.

First of all, I know what it feels like to get abuse on a daily basis. And I think female MPs in particular, do from all political parties get a considerable amount of abuse. And that's and that's not acceptable. People shouldn't feel like that. People are entitled to an opinion and they're there to represent their constituents.

It’s very clear and that people shouldn't suffer that level of abuse. And I can completely understand how Rosie feels in no circumstances because I've felt it myself at times.

And in terms of Josh’s point, I think it's really important to understand how the trans community at the moment are feeling under attack.

There's no going backwards, we have to move forwards. But we have to take everyone with us.

And to me, there is no there's no contradiction between trans rights and women's rights. There is very clearly equality that that Labour introduced has exemptions and safeguards for people to during that process.

I was incredibly proud to put forward with the conservatives, the compulsory sex and relationship education in our schools, which was teaching children about loving themselves for who they are.

This is not about brainwashing people. This is about, actually if that was your son or daughter, how we are compassionate, and how we support people in a compassionate way.

And trying to break it down into, you know, a couple of sound bites from people that I've got no understanding of what's going on, whether that's in the women's community, or whether that's in the trans community, and the effects that it has on these people. And that's not acceptable.

I think there is a way forward that means that the trans community don't have to feel scared - and a lot of the do feel scared at the moment because of the context to which the headlines are coming out and some of the language that's been used, and women feel scared at the moment, because they feel like they're being put in unsafe conditions and their rights have been repealed.

That's not the case. Under Labour, we were able to do both. We had rights for the LGBT community, and we forged ahead, and we had rights for women, and we forged ahead with them.

The two are not incompatible, but we have to get around to discussing how we safeguard everybody's rights - they're not a trade off one against the other - and how we can bring that compassion back.

And I think that that's what the majority of the country wants to see, not this debate that is debased it, to genitalia, that is not acceptable.

This is about human beings. And it's about our young people in particular, who have been damaged by some of the rhetoric around this and it has to stop.

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