Isabel Hardman

Keir Starmer really padded out his Budget response speech with pre-prepared lines today, to the extent that it was not quite clear what the Labour attack actually is. It’s always the case that replying to the chancellor the moment he finishes speaking is difficult. Occasionally opposition leaders are able to tease out a clear response to the chancellor; most years the response sounds more like general complaints about what the government has been up to. Today’s speech was very much in the latter category.

Rishi Sunak is in a hurry to fulfil his ‘five priorities’, especially on small boats. He’s in a hurry because there isn’t much time before the public use the general election to judge how well the Tories are doing. So legislation that promises to ‘stop the boats’ is moving through parliament swiftly. Most people agree that something must be done to prevent the deadly crossings in the Channel. But ministers are trying to get their own version of ‘something’ through parliament so quickly that MPs might not notice whether it will actually make the situation better – or indeed make it worse.

The tougher language on China in today’s refreshed Integrated Review hasn’t been enough for a number of Conservative MPs, who used the Commons statement on the matter to complain. When Foreign Secretary James Cleverly unveiled the updated security and foreign policy strategy to MPs, he described the ‘increasingly aggressive military and economic behaviour of the Chinese Community party’. The MPs who raised concerns were all well-known China hawks who were never going to be satisfied by the position Rishi Sunak has tried to take. Alicia Kearns, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, told Cleverly that China should not just be seen as an economic rival.

Keir Starmer decided that attack was the best form of defence at Prime Minister's Questions. He tackled Rishi Sunak's flagship 'stop the boats' policy on the basis that it simply won't work. The Labour leader started his attack by linking International Women's Day with what he claimed was the government driving a 'coach and horses' through its own anti-slavery legislation, which in particular protects women. He said the government had introduced five immigration reforms, all of which had failed, adding: 'The Home Secretary says the public are sick of tough talk and inadequate action. Does he agree with her assessment of this government's record?

Rishi Sunak has just finished a press conference on his flagship legislation to curb illegal crossings in the Channel. The Prime Minister said the legislation would enable him to ‘keep my promise’ to the public to stop the boats and that it would ‘break the business model of the people smugglers’. He said ‘this is tough, but it is necessary and it is fair’. Sunak set ‘stop the boats’ as one of his five priorities at the start of this year, and they are emblazoned across every press release from Downing Street. This evening, that pledge was also on his lectern in the No. 10 briefing room. He insisted that he was confident that he could deliver on this promise in time for the next election, otherwise he wouldn’t have made it a priority. He must be very confident.

Labour was the party under pressure in an urgent question in the Commons. This is not normally the order of things: it is usually the opposition or a disgruntled backbencher who tables the question, and an irritated-looking junior minister who is sent out to bat defensively on behalf of their beleaguered seniors. But today, the urgent question was from Robert Buckland, a supporter of Rishi Sunak, and it was about whether Sue Gray and the Labour party followed the rules around civil service appointments. Tory MPs were so interested to hear the answer that a multitude of them had tabled suspiciously similar questions to the extent that the Speaker complained he wasn’t going to be swayed by ‘mass lobbying’.

Helen Whately, the care minister, gave a moving speech this week. It was personal and emotional, but it won't get much attention. Whately told a health conference organised by the Nuffield Trust about the final months of her grandmother's life. Her grandmother had reached the age of 100 and was living independently, enjoying walks in the countryside, a spot of gardening and reading, she told the audience. But then, she had a fall, and while Whately said she would spare the conference the details of what happened next, there was a period of five months in which the centenarian was stuck in hospital. She was 'occasional receiving treatment, but mostly waiting for discharge', Whately said.

Rishi Sunak bowled up to Prime Minister's Questions in an excellent mood, clearly still on a high from his Windsor Framework. The PM was greeted by a huge cheer from Tory backbenchers on arrival, but then had six eclectic and not-particularly-effective questions from Keir Starmer to wade through. The most important of those questions came at the end when the Labour leader asked about the Daily Telegraph story on Matt Hancock and care home testing. 'We don't know the truth of what happened yet' because there were 'too many messages', Starmer said, before adding: 'For families across the country will look at this, at the sight of politicians writing books, portraying themselves as heroes or selectively leaking messages, it will be an insulting and ghoulish spectacle for them.

Rishi Sunak’s sell to the Commons this evening was that his Windsor Framework has ‘taken back control’ and that MPs need to ‘seize the opportunity of this moment’. In other words, Brexit is done and history will judge you if you don't back what's just been agreed. The Prime Minister was keen to pay tribute to his predecessors – not all of whom are present in the Commons as it debates his deal – for ‘laying the groundwork’ for it (this was too much for some MPs, who burst out laughing). But he also confirmed that the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill was dead, saying it had only ever been intended as a last resort. Now, he argued, it wasn't necessary. Sunak spoke for around half an hour, and was particularly keen to frame the choice facing both Tory Brexiteers and the DUP.