Andy Burnham had a reasonably easy Prime Minister’s Questions today. He didn’t produce any embarrassingly quotable slogans about national security not coming at the expense of social security, and neither did he appear particularly flummoxed by any of Kemi Badenoch’s attacks. The Conservative leader appeared to be enjoying herself as ever, but so was Burnham, who once again had some decent jokes about his opposite number.
Badenoch opened her questions by telling the Commons that last week she had asked the Prime Minister to ‘stop faffing about’ and approve the Jackdaw gas field. She joked that the government had appointed one of the ‘lefty activists’ who had tried to block it as energy secretary and demanded that the Prime Minister overturn his party’s ban on new licences. Burnham used his reply to paint himself once again as a pragmatist on energy, saying:
The pair scrapped over benefits and the mini-Budget, standard features of the Badenoch vs Burnham weekly session
Can we get something straight at the start of Prime Minister’s Questions? We have made a decision that her government messed up. That’s why there was the delay, because they didn’t do the process properly. And we’ve made a pragmatic decision, Mr Speaker, that will allow us to do two things: firstly, build a bridge to a renewable future because the resources that come in now from this decision will allow us to invest in renewables, bring forward clean energy and in this parliament substantially delink gas and electricity prices so we can bring bills down.
Badenoch joked that when Burnham started talking about process, ‘it almost felt like it was Keir Starmer standing there’ – which counts as an insult these days. She argued that ‘we live in the real world’ and quoted Burnham’s own words on energy security back at him. It wasn’t a difficult question, and Burnham was able to use it as a ‘point of agreement’, which he likes to find in order to disarm opposition politicians. He then joked, effectively, that ‘I appreciate that she wants us to take further decisions that she messed up when she was in government’ – which made even Badenoch grin. She then replied, with another grin, that if Burnham believed that North Sea drilling strengthened Britain’s energy security, then the Prime Minister ‘should approve all’ the applications. She then asked what the government was doing to get borrowing down.
Burnham’s reply included a further justification of the decision on Jackdaw. He then suggested Badenoch hadn’t read the report from the International Monetary Fund last week, citing its conclusions on Britain’s current economic strength – but not the fact that those conclusions were predicated on the country getting borrowing down. The Tory leader replied:
I asked him how he was getting borrowing down. He didn’t answer. He’s talking about the IMF report: I have looked at it, I don’t think that he has because it downgrades the forecast for next year. But also, it talks about deficit reduction plans in 2029. That’s after an election. They’re not going to be here after that election. They haven’t made any cuts.
Badenoch’s payoff to this question was a good one, and part of her wider theme of Burnham focusing on little things while avoiding the difficult decisions on the big issues:
We are spending more on interest payments than we do on schools, the army and the police combined. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister is worrying about loud music on trains. This is not serious.
Burnham took issue with this, pointing out that he had taken ‘the big decisions that they have avoided for many years’ on social care. He then gave a passionate argument in favour of Badenoch reading the latest Covid inquiry report, saying it showed ‘the appalling state of social care as it went into the pandemic’. He added: ‘I need no lectures from the other side about taking tough decisions on social care.’
The pair then scrapped once again over benefits and the mini-Budget, which are becoming standard features of the Badenoch vs Burnham weekly session. Nothing really moved today, and both sides behind the two leaders looked and sounded supportive – for now.
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