Key points
First of all, Jeremy Corbyn joins Theresa May in wishing the best to the head of the civil service Sir Jeremy Heywood, who is standing down.
The Labour leader’s first question is about austerity. He says the prime minister has promised austerity is over but the leader of Walsall council disagrees. Who is correct?
May says there are better days ahead and the government will set out its approach in next year’s spending review, with debt going down and support for public services going up. But “unlike Labour, we will continue to live within in our means”.
Corbyn quotes Mike Bird from Walsall council, who said austerity was not over. MPs and councillors have lost confidence in May. Derby council said austerity measures would continue.
May says the government is giving councils an extra £1.3bn. She then suggests Corbyn’s predictions about the results of earlier government economic policies have not come true.
Corbyn responds by talking about in-work poverty and the number of people on zero-hours contracts. Next is police cuts, another regular attack line for the Labour leader on austerity. He asks May for an apology over the cuts.
May responds by insisting more is being spent on the police. She then produces a copy of a book edited by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, in which one essay supposedly says Labour’s spending plans at the last election did not add up.
Corbyn responds by noting that the last Tory election manifesto contained no costings at all. He goes on to universal credit, and whether people who move on to it will be worse off. The prime minister says people will be protected, and praises UC.
Corbyn responds: “I think the prime minister is completely out of touch with the reality of what universal credit is all about.” He says people are going into debt, waiting too long for a first payment, losing their homes and are stressed beyond belief because they are unable to feed their children.
The Labour leader moves on to the number of nursing students, asking if the budget next week will reinstate bursaries for them. May responds with a slightly long and not entirely connected series of statistics about NHS spending, and what Labour would have committed.
Corbyn says applications for nursing courses have dropped by 12% because people are unable to afford to do them.
He then builds to his regularly weekly peroration, summing up his arguments on austerity and cuts, and asking May to confirm more spending on police, the NHS and other areas in the budget.
The prime minister replies by, again, citing a list of spending increases. She goes on to quote an academic saying Labour spending plans would cost the country £1tn, or £35,000 for every household.
Snap verdict
You might call that a score draw between May and Corbyn – but more of a scrappy 1-1 than a thrilling 4-4. Not a classic, even for devotees.
With the budget happening on Monday, it was no surprise that the Labour leader to focused on austerity, which is already one of his favourite lines for PMQs. As is also his habit, Corbyn skipped from area to area, rather than asking a series of connected questions, taking in council spending, the NHS, nurses and police numbers. Some observers argue this method fails to pin the prime minister down properly. Others say that as she so rarely answers questions, the opposition leader might as well cover as much ground as he can.
As is quite often the case between the pair, we heard a lot of statistics but learned very little, and neither sides’ MPs sounded enthused, as much as I could tell without being in the chamber.
May’s pre-prepared trick was to wave about a copy of Economics for the Many, edited by McDonnell, and cite something from one of its essays. This brought some cheers from Tory MPs, but I’m not sure it was very effective. If you edit a book of essays, you don’t necessarily have to agree with everything written.
Nonetheless, May will possibly be buoyed before her meeting with backbenchers at the 1922 Committee later on Wednesday, as another challenge in her latest “hell week” turns out to be notably less dramatic than billed.
Memorable lines
Jeremy Corbyn:
The prime minister is completely out of touch with the reality of what universal credit is about: £50 a week worse off, weeks waiting for the first payment … people going into debt, losing their homes, people stressed out beyond belief because they can’t make ends meet.
Theresa May:
He mentioned the wait people have in order to get their first payment. We announced … last year that we were reducing the period of time people had to wait … they voted against that change.
