PMQs: Badenoch makes Starmer squirm on welfare

Prime minister’s questions: a shouty, jeery, very occasionally useful advert for British politics. Here’s what you need to know from the latest session in POLITICO’s weekly run-through.

What they sparred about: Winter fuel payments and the two-child benefit cap. In the first joust since recess, Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch took Prime Minister Keir Starmer to task over the government’s flip-flopping on money for pensioners and significant ambiguity about funding for struggling parents.

Message discipline: The removal of winter fuel funding for all but the poorest pensioners was widely blamed for Labour’s poor local election results last month. Starmer said a fortnight ago he wanted to increase payment eligibility. Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed Wednesday some payments would indeed be reinstated in time for this winter, though Pensions Minister Torsten Bell said on the same day that the universal element of the payment won’t return. Confused?

Fueling the flames: Badenoch certainly was, asking the PM just how many of the ten million pensioners affected by the change would get their money back. Starmer ducked the point, quipping he was “glad to see she’s catching up with what happened two weeks ago.” The PM argued eligibility could widen as the economy improved — and definitely had nothing to do with dire elections whatsoever.

Loosening the purse strings: The Tory leader mentioned she had actually asked about winter fuel two weeks ago and slammed Starmer’s “selective amnesia.” Thanks to numerous u-turns, she quipped, “his head must be spinning” — before probing him on how the change of heart would be paid for. Answer came there none, with Starmer instead trotting out old classics about Liz Truss’ mini-budget and a “£22 billion black hole.”

Long grass: Failing to get anywhere, Badenoch tried a direct “yes or no” question. Would the two-child benefit cap be scrapped? Starmer, once again, didn’t answer, only referencing a task force to bring down child poverty. Frustrated at the lack of answers, the Tory leader decried the “chaos, chaos, chaos” emanating from the Labour benches.

Nuclear option: In a slight gear change, Starmer didn’t say what he really thought about the benefit cap (an awkward topic with numerous backbenchers calling for its abolition) but condemned Badenoch for an interview saying Ukraine was fighting a proxy war “on behalf of Western Europe against Russia” — a line mischievously seized upon by the Russian embassy in London.

(Kinda) helpful backbench intervention of the week: Labour’s Cardiff West MP Alex Barros-Curtis praised the government’s recent U.S. trade agreement for protecting the British industry and asked how the government was supporting steelworkers. That gave Starmer a chance to highlighted the U.K.’s unique exemption from Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on steel — although it’s still very much on the hook for the 25 tariffs the deal was supposed to exempt it from. Starmer said he was working quickly reduce that 25 percent levy to zero. The proof will be in the pudding …

Totally unscientific scores on the doors: Badenoch 8/10. Starmer 6/10. The prime minister will always enjoy the loudest cheers and backbench support thanks to the huge number of Labour MPs. However, that didn’t mask the absence of any answers on winter fuel and welfare, areas where Starmer is vulnerable with his troops.