Rayner attacks Dowden over ‘Tory mortgage bombshell’ as Sunak misses PMQs again – UK politics live | Politics

Downing Street said there was “no final decision” on public sector pay, with ministers still considering whether to accept the recommendations of pay review bodies.

The prime minister’s official spokesman said: “We are still working through that process.”

He said the government, with the target of cutting inflation, would “need to consider those recommendations carefully”.

He told reporters:

We are looking at all of those recommendations in the round and are working through the process. We haven’t made a final decision on accepting them.

The spokesman indicated that there would be concerns about borrowing to fund pay rises.

Clearly, borrowing to fund double-digit pay rises… we think would be inflationary, so we need to consider in the round.

Here’s some reaction to today’s PMQs:

Rachel Wearmouth, deputy political editor of the New Statesman says Rayner demolished Dowden.

The Mirror’s Whitehall correspondent Mikey Smith says Dowden was like a substitute teacher unable to control the class.

Columnist for the Evening Standard and the iPaper Ayesha Hazarika said Dowden’s attempt at a joke was painful.

Noa Hoffman, political reporter of The Sun says the whole thing was painful.

John Rentoul, chief political commentator, The Independent, said Dowden’s cliches were dreadful.

Cat Smith of Labour asks Dowden about plans to close tickets offices, which she says is “yet another cost-of-living bombshell” hitting constituents.

Dowden says it is important railways continue to “reform” after the “record amount of money we gave them during Covid”.

He adds that if Smith is concerned about people’s ability to take trains she should condemn “totally unjustified” strikes.

Mhairi Black, the SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, asked about the rise in mortgage rates, which she says are have surpassed the levels seen after the “disastrous mini-budget” by Kwasi Kwarteng.

She asks:

How high do they need to go until he and his government takes it seriously?

In response, Dowden says “the driver of higher mortgage rates is higher inflation”.

He adds that this is driven by the war in Ukraine and disruption in the supply chain due to Covid, adding that Sunak plans to halve inflation.

Black responds that it has been forecast that mortgages could rise by another £500 for a million households.

She says:

The prime minister says people need to hold their nerve.

She added that people need help “right now”.

Pete Wishart brings up the order from the immigration minister, Robert Jenrick to repaint murals of cartoon characters including Mickey Mouse painted on the walls of an asylum seeker reception centre

He said:

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite so grotesque as the painting over of Micky Mouse on a children’s mural as was done by the Home Office at a detention centre.

No Tory Minister has roused the necessary compassion or concern to speak out about this. So can I ask the Deputy PM too look into the deeper recesses of his soul and just simply condem it?

Oliver Dowden responds by deflecting:

I’ll tell [Pete Wishart] what real compassion looks like. Stopping the vile people smuggling trade across the channel, condemning women and children to death. The SNP shamefully 18 times last night voted against our Stop the Boats Bill.

Oliver Dowden:

It is this party, not the party opposite, which extended free school meals to all five, six and seven-year-olds, something the party opposite failed to do, and it sits alongside many measures we’re taking to help people with the cost of living.

Dowden went on to highlight further government support, adding:

It may come as a surprise to (Ms Rayner) but balancing the books means more than working out how many millions to take from her union paymasters.

Oliver Dowden says Labour says it is the party of working people, but under their plans, people can’t even get to work, with Just Stop Oil protesters “blocking our roads”, “their union paymasters stopping our trains” and the “hated ULEZ stopping cars across our capital”.

He says Conservatives get Britain moving while Labour is just “standing in everyone’s way”.

Angela Rayner: The truth is, rising bills and soaring mortgages and plummeting real wages are pushing more and more families to the brink. Those already struggling are being hit hardest by the Tory mortgage bombshell and rising food costs.

Dowden said the government has lifted 400,000 children out of child poverty.

He also pointed to measures to cut taxes by “doubling the personal allowance”.

He said:

That is the surest way to ensure we lift people out of poverty.

In response, Rayner doubled down on her comparison to Boris Johnson:

It’s like the ghost of prime minister past is still here.

She told Dowden to be careful about the stats he uses. She said her counterpart can’t solve child poverty if he doesn’t acknowledge the problem.

She then asked: How many kids don’t have a permanent address today, compared to when Labour left office in 2010?

Dowden fumbled as he didn’t seem to have an answer.

Angela Rayner accused Oliver Dowden of taking tips from Boris Johnson as the pair clashed over child poverty and homelessness in the UK.

She said:

I think he’s taking tips from the former prime minister on telling the facts.

The last Labour government worked hard to dramatically reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation.

But under the Tories, the number of homeless children has risen by 75%. I’m proud of our record on tackling child poverty.

Rayner then asked if Dowden is ashamed of the Tory record.

Lots of laughs in the Commons has Oliver Dowden makes a dig about Keir Starmer and tree huggers (for reference, Starmer apparently hates them).

He says:

They seem very keen on hugging that magic money tree.

Rayner attacks Dowden over ‘Tory mortgage bombshell’

Oliver Dowden has kicked off PMQs by pointing out that he is covering for Rishi Sunak, who is at the Nato summit.

He begins by pledging that the Tories will “continue to invest” in renewable energy, before stressing the UK must also invest in “energy independence”.

He says: “That means investing in the North Sea,” warning that if we don’t there will be higher carbon emissions “as we import from elsewhere”.

Dowden is then asked about Labour plans to “tax education of choice”. He says schools are concerned “this will apply to them as well”. The deputy prime minister said these Labour plans could cost £300m.

Ofwat chief executive David Black told MPs taxpayers would face some extra costs if Thames Water was placed into a so-called special administration regime (SAR), but that these would be far lower than seen after the collapse of Bulb.

He said water companies have very large assets, which would help limit the cost to taxpayers.

Black said:

We do accept that there is a risk to taxpayers and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been working to drive increased financial resilience into companies.

He said the regulator was still on standby to place Thames Water into an SAR, but that it was not an immediate risk, given the recent pledge by investors to pump more cash into the firm.

Black said:

It’s prudent planning to be ready for SAR. We need to be ready to deploy that.

It’s great that the company has secured the commitment from shareholders but the money has not yet arrived. At that point, we will feel more confident.

Oliver Dowden to face Angela Rayner at PMQs shortly

Simon Case told MPs that some people had sought to “weaponise” the Sue Gray row amid broader attacks on the civil service.

The cabinet secretary criticised the use of the term “the blob”, a phrase deployed often by some Tory MPs to attack the civil service and officials.

Taking questions from the Tory MP David Jones about whether the Partygate investigator’s move to join Sir Keir Starmer’s team had stoked concerns, Case said:

Actually, it has been particularly important that we assure ourselves and ministers that ministers are comfortable and happy that the impartiality of the civil service has been upheld. They are satisfied it has.

Undoubtedly, there are people who have sought to weaponise this case.

On the use of the term “the blob” more generally, Case said:

There has always been language that has been around for people to express their frustrations – [at] the establishment, the system. I think this is a bit different.

I fear it is being used in a very modern, dehumanising way. There are legitimate frustrations within the system.

He told Jones, as a former minister, “you would have raised them privately through the proper channels”.

The Treasury’s tax and spending watchdog is preparing to sound the alarm over the impact of rising interest rates on the public finances, delivering a serious blow to the government’s scope for pre-election tax cuts.

The independent Office for Budget Responsibility will warn that stubbornly high inflation and soaring borrowing costs are adding to the challenges facing Rishi Sunak, making it less likely that he will meet one of his five key pledges: tackling Britain’s public debt.

It is understood the OBR will produce a range of scenarios in its annual “fiscal risks and sustainability report” on Thursday, setting out the impact of higher interest rates for the public purse, in a warning that sustained pressure could force it to tear up its official forecasts.

The watchdog said it would “assess the fiscal implications of recent rises in global interest rates, consider the vulnerability of the UK’s current debt position, and explore the challenges in getting debt to fall in the coming years”.

Read the full story by my colleague Richard Partington here: