Gulf · UAE Digital
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has pressed Andy Burnham over UK borrowing and spending at his first Prime Minister's Questions. Badenoch called on the PM to say where spending would be cut and how he would deal with the UK's increasing debt, after the cost of borrowing for the UK rose, reaching a new 18-year high on Wednesday. The PM blamed the previous Conservative government saying that the "turbulence on global markets are because of that exposure that they left behind".
Burnham became prime minister in July, having taken over from Sir Keir Starmer just before Parliament's summer recess, and it was the first time he had faced the Tory leader at the Commons session. The prime minister used the summer recess to tour the UK, and had announced a series of eye-catching policies, mainly aimed at tackling the cost of living. MPs returned to Parliament on Tuesday and Burnham spent over three hours in the Commons, making a statement and answering questions from MPs.
At PMQs, Badenoch said the prime minister had set out plenty of spending plans but no detail of how he would be paying the bill. "The markets are clearly worried that we now have a spendthrift prime minister who wants to say yes to everyone but cannot tell us where the money is coming from," she said. "He needs to pay for all his new promises and he has a choice - higher taxes, more borrowing, or spending cuts.
"Yesterday he said change begins with honesty, so will he be honest and tell us: is he preparing to raise taxes again, yes or no?" Burnham had earlier said he had already cut taxes, including VAT on energy bills and a cut in business rates for hospitality. "I've already indicated my first moves were to cut tax, but I'm not going to do what any prime minister has done and write the budget here," he said, adding he and Chancellor John Healey had agreed on an early date for the Budget in October to reduce speculation. Burnham attacked Badenoch's shadow cabinet reshuffle for bringing MPs who were part of the leadership team of former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss back to her front benches, to shouts of "point-scoring!" from the Conservative side.
"Can I also say to her and the whole of her new shadow cabinet, the majority of whom were part of a government that lasted for 49 days, a short-lived government that crashed confidence in the economy and hammered people's mortgages," he said. "She took a decision at the weekend, she removed a shadow chancellor who said that the Truss mini budget was a mistake, and she replaced that shadow chancellor with one that helped to write the Truss mini budget." Badenoch said Burnham had not ruled out tax rises, claiming: "The reason why that budget failed was because spending was announced before the money to pay for it, which is exactly what he is doing right now." She went on to raise the Russian attack on Leipzig airport in Germany , urging the prime minister to commit to 3% spending. So far the new government has only committed to meeting the 3.5% spending target for defence by 2035, pushing back the interim 3% spending commitment to spring next year.
The new chancellor quit as defence minister in June over the last government's failure to commit to a 3% increase, which proved to be the final nail in the coffin for Sir Keir's premiership. Burnham told MPs: "The very reason I appointed this Chancellor to his position is because of his strong commitment to the defence of our country and to defence spending. "We will fully fund the defence investment plan and at the spending review we will set out a plan to meet the Nato commitments by 2035, there is no problem with our commitment to defence."
Source: BBC
