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May faces Corbyn in her first prime minister's questions - live May faces Corbyn in her first prime minister's questions - live
(35 minutes later)
12.14pm BST 12.44pm BST
12:14 12:44
Corbyn says austerity means people being poorer, and services being cut. May said in her Number 10 speech that some people have job insecurity. Does that mean May will scrap employment tribunal fees, or ban zero hours contracts? That would give greater job security to people. I missed Angus Robertson’s question earlier, because I was writing up m snap verdict, and so here are the questions from the SNP leader at Wesminster.
May says it is important that MPs consider not just the obvious injustices, but the problems facing people struggling to make ends meet. That is why the income tax threshold has gone up. Corbyn refers to the situation of workers with job insecurity and unscrupulous bosses. Many MPs might be familiar with this. A boss who does not listen to his workers. Or asks his workers to double up? Or exploits the rules to further his own interest. “Remind him of anybody?” He started by asking if Theresa May agreed that Scotland could remain part of the EU, and how her talks with Nicola Sturgeon were going.
Corbyn says this may be funny for Tory MPs, but Tory MPs do not need to use food banks. May highlighted government failings in her speech last week, he says. Yesterday the IFS said two thirds of Britons living in poverty have at least one child in work. What can May offer them? May replied:
May says it is the government’s duty to offer these people something. But the answer is not uncapped welfare. The answer is to deliver jobs, she says. The government must create an economy that works for everyone. Labour may be about to spent several months fighting and tearing itself apart. The Tories will bring the country back together. I did discuss the arrangements in relation to negotiations ... I was very pleased that my first trip was to Scotland and that I was able to do that so early in our premiership ... I was also clear with the FM that i think there are some ideas being put forward that are impractical but I am willing to listen to ideas that are brought forward.
12.09pm BST Robertson then mentioned May’s trip to Berlin this afternoon.
12:09 Would the PM thank Chancellor Merkel for the interest of the members of her government and members of the bundestag, their interest in having Scotland remain members of the EU. And will she reassure that we will do everything – everything – to stay in the EU.
Corbyn says Labour put in place a decent homes standard. Starter homes at £450,000 a year aren’t affordable. May said in her Number 10 speech last week that blacks were discriminated against. So did she ask Boris Johnson about calling blacks “piccaninnies” when she appointed him? May replied:
May says house prices are higher in London. That is why the starter home limits for London are higher. I have to say - because this is a line he has been taking for some time - I do find it a little confusing given that only two years ago the SNP was campaigning for Scotland to leave the UK, which would have meant them leaving the European Union.
As home secretary she dealt with the issue of stop and search, she said. She did that as a Conservative. In 13 years Labour did nothing. 12.39pm BST
Corbyn said he had asked about Johnson’s language. The government has abandoned its deficit reduction target. Six years of austerity has failed. The long-term economic plan has failed. Is there a new one? 12:39
May says it is delivering the record employment today. She says the government has not given up its plans to balance the budget. Corbyn calls this “austerity”. She calls this “living within your means”, she says. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, says May has come a long way since they were candidates together in Durham in 1992. It has been reported the new Brexit department will be hiring lawyers at a rate of £5,000 a day.
12.06pm BST May says the Brexit department needs to be properly staffed. And she says when she and Farron were both candidates, people would not have expected them both to lead parties. But hers is bigger than his, she says.
12:06
Jeremy Corbyn welcomes May to her place. He says he hopes she agrees PMQs should be a place for serious debate.
He says as home secretary May kicked the proposed Orgreave inquiry into the long grass. Will she order a full public inquiry into this?
May says Corbyn said she was the second woman prime minister. Labour often asks what the Tories do for women. “Just keep making us prime minister,” she says. She says she hopes she will continue having discussions with Corbyn “for many years to come”.
She says the home secretary will respond to an urgent question on Orgreave later.
Corbyn says today home ownership is down. What target has May set for home ownership among young people?
May says the figures Corbyn are quoting include 13 years of Labour. This government is focusing on building more homes, she says.
12.03pm BST
12:03
John Glen, a Conservative, welcomes May to her place and asks if she welcomes the vote for Trident renewal. Will economic stability and national security be the guiding principles of her premiership?
May welcomes the vote on Monday. It showed the Commons is committed to national security, and to the security of our European allies, she says. She thanks the 140 Labour MPs who put the national interest first and voted for Trident renewal.
12.01pm BST
12:01
Theresa May is greeted with cheers as she stands up.
She starts by welcoming the employment figures.
And she says she is going to Berlin this afternoon to meet Chancellor Merkel. Tomorrow she is going to Paris, she says.
12.00pm BST
12:00
Corbyn should probably go on the migration muddle, and David David recently withdrawing name from ECJ case against May - probably won't
11.59am BST
11:59
First Leaders' PMQs without @David_Cameron for a decade -avg age of protagonists - 63 - special prize if you can work out if that's a record
11.59am BST
11:59
Meanwhile, #JeremyCorbyn slips in to silence from his own MPs #PMQs
11.58am BST
11:58
Big cheers for @theresa_may as she takes her seat for first #PMQs
11.58am BST
11:58
Theresa May's first PMQs
It is Theresa May’s first PMQs.
Her husband is in the gallery to watch.
Philip May in the Lords' gallery to watch his wife's first #PMQs
Updated
at 11.58am BST
11.55am BST
11:55
Owen Smith's morning interviews - Summary and analysis
If you’re a candidate for the Labour leadership and you wake up in the morning to hear the second item on the Radio 4 news is a story about how you have been forced to say that you are committed to a publicly-funded NHS, then you are probably in a spot of trouble. But, from a bad start, the morning did get better for Owen Smith. He has given at least five interviews this morning, some of them quite long, and they have covered a wide range of topics. He had a lot to say, and he addressed some of the complaints that have been levelled against him in some detail. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, he would turn slogans into solutions, he said. Of course that is a slogan too, but Smith delivered it with some plausibility. Overall, his media blitz probably did not go badly.
Here are the main points.
Jeremy has still got a lot to say for the Labour Party, but I don’t think Jeremy is a leader. I don’t think he’s a leader in parliament, but I do think he’s got a lot to say for Labour. I would absolutely want him to take a role like president, or chairman, as we have had in the past ... Jeremy has a way of communicating that many of our members find very appealing.
As the £80,000-a-year head of government affairs for the US drug company Pfizer, Mr Smith appeared to support an expanded role for private companies in providing healthcare for NHS patients.
In October 2005, commenting on a Pfizer-backed report into offering patients a choice between NHS services and private-sector healthcare providers, Mr Smith said: “We believe that choice is a good thing and that patients and healthcare professionals should be at the heart of developing the agenda.
Smith said the claim that he wanted more market involvement in the NHS was “a lie”. He said the Pfizer comment was made at a time when the then Labour government was using private providers to cut waiting lists for procedures like hip, knee and cataract operations. But he said the last Labour government went too far in allowing the private sector a role in the NHS. He said:
I believe in a 100% publicly owned NHS free at the point of use. It has been one of Labour’s profoundest achievements. I grew up swaddled in stories of the Labour Party creating the NHS.
There are obviously already many services in the NHS that are provided by private providers, there are a hell of a lot more of them now because of the way the current Tory government has twisted some of the words of the last Labour government. Broadly speaking, we made a mistake, the last Labour government, in not appreciating how a Tory government would ride a coach and horses through the language. In employing words like ‘choice’ I think we allowed them to use that as a Trojan horse to try and marketise the NHS. I’m opposed to that.
Smith was noticeably less critical of Labour’s decision to expand the role of the private sector in the NHS when he spoke about this in an interview with WalesOnline when he was a byelection candidate in 2006.
That’s why people have lost faith in Jeremy … Jeremy’s been great at identifying some of the questions, some of the challenges, but he’s not been great at the answers.
He also said that, under Corbyn, Labour was “in crisis” and “a bit of a rabble”.
Jeremy, in truth, has spoken a lot about it, but I think we need to be a lot more vigorous ... Jeremy should have stamped on this a lot harder. He’s let it run. Some people think he;s even encouraged it. Now, I don’t know that, but I do know that it has got to be stamped out in Labour.
When pressed as to whether he thought Corbyn had encouraged this, he replied:
But I think he’s not been strong enough. I think he has genuinely not understood what a grave problem this is.
I was working for him and I did not get a lot of guidance from Jeremy on any of those things. He was happy to talk about them after we had achieved them. But I tell you straight, it was me who drove that forward in the Labour party.
As a young man working on a radio programme, the Today programme where there was a bit of a culture of bullying, I made a very silly decision.
I’m telling you I made a mistake. It was very embarrassing with colleagues at the time and it was very embarrassing when the police did make a mistake.”
We all do daft things when we’re young... there was an editor of the programme who was a bit heavy-handed at the time. I think I was foolish to respond to that and do something daft.
The Good Morning Britain interview was the first he gave this morning. In later interviews he happily owned up to his mistake, but did not repeat the line about the culture of bullying.
I want to debate with Jeremy in every town, every village hall, every city in Britain.
Labour sources say that, although only three party hustings are planned, they expect other organisations to organise hustings.
Yes is the unfortunate answer to that because, if you are serious about defence and serious about having a nuclear deterrent, then you have to be prepared to do that.
I want to create a party democracy. I would set up a senate, a shadow cabinet, of party members to advise me as leader of the Labour party. I want new ways in which we retain greater contact between the members and the leaders of the party at Westminster. Members are right that they have been treated shabbily by previous leaderships.
No, I haven’t actually, I haven’t needed it.
10.46am BST
10:46
Here is more on the Labour/Corbyn court case. (See 10.39am.) These are from the BBC’s Tom Symonds.
Jeremy Corbyn will be represented in legal action re his automatic inclusion on Labour leadership ballot, a judge at the High Court decides
Corbyn’s barrister argued his interests were not same as those of Iain McNicol, the Labour General Sec facing legal action from a donor
Michael Foster’s challenging the decision of the Labour NEC to put Corbyn on the ballot without nominations. Case to be heard next Tues.
10.39am BST
10:39
This is from the Press Association.
#Breaking Jeremy Corbyn wins bid to personally fight legal action to overturn guaranteed leadership ballot place pic.twitter.com/btxaFmJurv
This relates to a court decision about whether Jeremy Corbyn can be a party to the proceedings in a legal case brought by a Labour donor who has gone to court to challenge the party’s decision to allow Corbyn to contest the leadership without having acquired the 51 nominations from MPs and MEPs that Owen Smith needs. There is more on this here, on yesterday’s blog.
10.30am BST
10:30
Theresa May's conversation with Donald Tusk
Theresa May told Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, that the UK would be giving up its final EU presidency (see 9.26am) when the two spoke by phone last night. A Downing Street spokesperson gave this account of the conversation
The president of the European Council Donald Tusk called the prime minister yesterday evening to congratulate her on her appointment.
The prime minister thanked President Tusk for the clear message he has given that the UK remains a full member of the EU until such a time as we leave and the prime minister underlined that she wants to approach the negotiations on the UK’s exit from the European Union in a constructive and pragmatic spirit.
In this context, the prime minister suggested that the UK should relinquish the rotating presidency of the council, currently scheduled for the second half of 2017, noting that we would be prioritising the negotiations to leave the European Union. Donald Tusk welcomed the PM’s swift decision on this issue which would allow the council to put alternative arrangements in place.
Finally, the prime minister explained that we will need to carefully prepare for the negotiations to leave the EU before triggering article 50. Donald Tusk reassured the prime minister that he will help to make this process happen as smoothly as possible.
They concluded by looking forward to a strong working relationship and agreed that they should meet soon in Brussels or London.
10.14am BST
10:14
Smith said the worst thing that happened to him recently was when he went to watch the Wales v Belgium game at the pub. He met someone he had known since childhood who asked why he wanted to be Labour leader. He said he was alarmed by how the reputation of the party had fallen.
And that’s it.And that’s it.
As promised earlier, I will post a summary of Smith’s morning media blitz soon. 12.36pm BST
10.10am BST 12:36
10:10 Philip Davies, a Conservative, asks if May will keep her promise to get immigration below 100,000.
Smith said he would be radical as leader. He was on the left of the party, and would supply radical solutions. May says the Brexit vote sent a very clear message about the need to control immigration. She is firm in her belief that net migration needs to come down to sustainable levels. She says to her that means getting it into the tens of thousands.
10.09am BST 12.35pm BST
10:09 12:35
Q: You could split the Labour party? Labour’s Barry Sheerman reminds May that he told her a few weeks ago that he thought she would end up prime minister. Will May soon give young millennials her vision of the future?
Smith said he thought the Labour party would be more likely to split if Corbyn won. May says she remembers Sheerman telling her she would “trounce the men”. The Tories came up with an all-woman shortlist without being told to, she says. She says she wants young people to know that their opportunities are not just in Europe.
That was why Corbyn had to compromise, Smith said. He said he had told him, “compromise, man”. Corbyn could become the Labour party president, he said. 12.33pm BST
Q: How likely is a split? 12:33
If Labour carries on like this, it will split, Smith said. That is why he is standing, he said. Simon Hoare, a Conservative, asks May if she will consult farmers over Brexit.
Smith said he heard there would be only three head-to-head hustings. Smith said he wanted 300. May says she will consult widely as we leave the EU. Agriculture will be particularly affected, and farmers will be consulted.
10.06am BST 12.32pm BST
10:06 12:32
Q: Does Labour have a problem with women? The SNP’s Stuart Donaldson asks May if she will ratify the Istanbul convention.
Smith said he thought there had been a problem recently with misogyny and antisemitism. Some women have been subject to appalling abuse, he said. Often these were criminal acts. They needed to be treated with zero tolerance. May says she is committed to tackling violence against women and girls. But there is always more to do, she says.
He says Corbyn should have stamped down on this much harder. Some people even think Corbyn has encouraged it, he said. 12.30pm BST
Q: Do you think that? 12:30
Smith said he did not know. But he thought Corybn had to stamp it out. May says the Conservative benches contain MPs brought up in council homes, MPs brought up by single mothers, and the Tory chairman is a former miner. The party will govern in the interests of everyone.
10.04am BST 12.29pm BST
10:04 12:29
Q: What have you achieved politically? Labour’s Imran Hussain asks for an assurance that the Northern schools strategy will continue.
Smith said he got the government to U-turn over tax credit cuts and over the cuts to personal independence payments. May says it is important that children get the education they deserve. A review has been looking at this. The education secretary will make the position clear later.
He said he played a part in getting rid of Iain Duncan Smith. 12.28pm BST
Q: Jeremy Corbyn claims credit for that. 12:28
Smith said he did not get a lot of guidance from Corbyn on those campaigns. Kelly Tollhurst, a Conservative, asks if the government has plans to strengthen the protection available to young women at risk of sexual abuse.
He repeated the point about a panel of advisers, saying it would be “an additional shadow cabinet”, giving him advice from the grassroots. May says since the Rotherham scandal the government has been putting more measures in place to help the police to address this. In the coming months arrangements will be strengthened.
12.26pm BST
12:26
Labour’s Catherine McKinnell asks about Heathrow expansion. Will May do better than “dithering Dave” on this?
May says the position has not changed. Further work has been done on air quality. The cabinet and government will take a decision in the proper way in due course.