Kemi Badenoch has accused the Prime Minister of “running away” from a “U-turn” on winter fuel payments for pensioners.
The Conservative Party leader accused Sir Keir Starmer of appearing at the despatch box “all puffed up and self-righteous”, and claimed he has “the wrong Chancellor and the wrong priorities”.
Sir Keir listed “three trade deals, record investment, breakfast clubs, social affordable housing, defence review” and the decision to pump £14.2 billion into building Sizewell C nuclear power station in Suffolk as being among his achievements.
At Prime Minister’s Questions, Mrs Badenoch told the Commons: “Last year he said he was taking the winter fuel payment away to balance the books.
“But the books are not balanced, in fact they are worse.
“This year the deficit is forecast to be £10 billion higher since the budget.
“Not since last year’s election, since the budget.
“In what way are the books now balanced?”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves last year announced that the Government would strip pensioners of the universal winter fuel payment, unless they claimed certain means-tested benefits.
But the Government has since said pensioners with a gross taxable income of less than £35,000 will be eligible for payments of up to £300 each winter.
Sir Keir replied: “She’s obviously missed the interest rate cuts, the growth figures for earlier this year, the strategic defence review, local transport – £15 billion going in, free school meals, Sizewell, social housing.
“She stands there to lecture us, and I see Liz Truss is obviously back in vogue.
“Advising Reform officially now, haunting the Tories, and I remind her that the shadow home secretary (Chris Philp), I think he was then chief secretary to the Treasury, he gave a Liz Truss budget 9.5 out of 10.
“The Leader of the Opposition said what was wrong with Liz Truss’s budget was not necessarily the package, that was alright, it was the way it was sold.
“They’ve learnt absolutely nothing.”
In a follow-up question, Mrs Badenoch said the Prime Minister mentioned Ms Truss because he “wants to hide from his own economic record”.
She added: “He’s a coward.
“Every time he stands up there and talks about Liz Truss it’s because he is scared about talking about his record and what is happening to the economy out there.
“Let’s bring it back to the U-turn which he’s running away from.
“A U-turn on the policy his MPs went out defending time and time again.”
Mrs Badenoch continued: “This is laughable.
“He stands there all puffed up and self-righteous.
“Why can’t the Prime Minister just admit that he made a mistake?”
In his response, the Prime Minister said: “Three weeks ago I said that I wanted more pensioners to be eligible for winter fuel.
“I’m really pleased we’ve set out the threshold for the certainty that is needed.
“She says I don’t want to talk about record.
“What about three trade deals, record investment, breakfast clubs, social affordable housing, defence review, Sizewell, we could go on all morning.”
He added: “At the weekend she said that she would be getting better in the role.
“She could start with apologising for the Liz Truss budget, that would be better.”
Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle rebuked laughing Labour MPs after Mrs Badenoch said her PMQs performances “get better every week”.
He told them their behaviour was a “very bad look”.
In her question, Mrs Badenoch said Ms Reeves said the winter fuel payment “U-turn won’t be funded through higher borrowing”.
She asked: “So, will the Prime Minister admit that it will be funded by putting everybody’s taxes up?”
Sir Keir said: “At the budget, we put record investment in our NHS and our public services – record investment – but she comes every week to carp on about national insurance, but she doesn’t stand there with the courage of her convictions and say she’ll actually reverse it, and the reason she won’t?
“Because she won’t stand up and say she’s against the investment in the NHS, she won’t stand up and say she’s against the investment in our public services, and we’ll all listen very carefully in just 20 minutes when the Chancellor lays out more record investment as to whether they welcome it, or whether they’ll say they wouldn’t support it.”
In her final question, Mrs Badenoch said Ms Reeves had “made bad choices – bad choices that mean higher inflation, bad choices that have led to lower growth, bad choices that have meant that jobs have been lost every single month since Labour come into office”.
She said “thousands of families” had “lost their incomes in Stoke, in Grangemouth, in Luton”, before she asked: “Isn’t the truth that we’ve got the wrong Chancellor and the wrong priorities?”
Sir Keir said: “A wrong choice they made was making her Leader of the Opposition.”
Turning to the Government’s plan to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, where the UK maintains a military presence on Diego Garcia, Mrs Badenoch had earlier claimed “Mauritius is scrapping income tax” and asked: “Why on earth should the British taxpayer pay £30 billion for tax cuts in Mauritius?”
The Government risked jeopardising the “vital intelligence and strategic capability” on Diego Garcia without a deal, the Prime Minister warned.
“Legal uncertainty would compromise it in very short order,” he added.
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