Starmer hits out at ‘weak’ PM in housing targets row
SIR Keir Starmer has told the Prime Minister that Labour will lend the UK Government the votes it needs to pass the Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill with mandatory housing targets.
The Labour leader insisted Rishi Sunak, whom he described as “weak”, does not need to do another “grubby” deal to defeat the amendment from his “antigrowth” backbenchers.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said: “Country before party, that’s the Labour way. Why doesn’t he try it?”
His comments come days after the UK Government was forced to pull a vote on plans for mandatory, centrally-set targets to build 300,000 homes a year in England, after around 50 Tory MPs signed an amendment that would have scrapped the targets.
The Labour leader said: “Every week, he hands out cash to those that don’t need it. Every week he gets pushed around, and every week he gets weaker.
“But I can help him with this one, he doesn’t need to do another grubby deal. If he wants to defeat that amendment from his antigrowth backbenchers on national targets for housing, Labour will lend him the votes to do so. Country before party, that’s the Labour way. Why doesn’t he try it?”
The Prime Minister did not take him up on the offer and said it was the same “old” Labour ideas, with “more debt, more inflation, more strikes and more migration”.
Sir Keir also criticised the Conservatives’ record on home ownership, as he claimed “at this rate, under this Government, a child born in the UK today wouldn’t be able to buy their first home until they are 45”.
The exchange between the two leaders also saw them battling on the issue of tax breaks for private schools.
Sir Keir took aim at the PM’s old private school, asking why it receives “taxpayers’ money”.
He said: “Winchester College has a rowing club, a rifle club, an extensive art collection, they charge over £45,000 a year in fees. Why did he hand them nearly £6 million of taxpayers’ money this year in what his Levelling Up Secretary (Michael Gove) calls egregious state support?”
Mr Sunak said: “This is a country that believes in opportunity not resentment. He doesn’t understand that and that’s why he’s not fit to lead.”