Sir Keir Starmer claimed the Government has inherited crisis and failure “absolutely everywhere”, amid warnings his “honeymoon” period as Prime Minister is already over.
The Labour leader shared a series of cordial exchanges with his predecessor Rishi Sunak over Ukraine as he faced his first Prime Minister’s Questions at the helm.
But Sir Keir was later pressed by the SNP on the first Commons rebellion he suffered over the two-child benefit cap, while Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey urged the Prime Minister to grasp the “once-in-a-century chance to fix social care”.
Sir Keir replied to Sir Ed in the Commons: “He’s right, it is a crisis.
“I’m sorry to have to report to the House it’s not the only crisis that we’ve inherited. There’s a crisis and a failure absolutely everywhere after 14 years of failure that this Government of service will begin the hard yards of fixing, including on social care.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn highlighted Sir Keir’s internal party difficulties, which saw seven MPs lose the Labour whip after backing an SNP King’s Speech amendment calling for the two-child benefit cap to be scrapped.
Mr Flynn, who congratulated Sir Keir for “ending Tory rule”, said: “In his campaign to do so (Sir Keir) was of course joined by Gordon Brown and just five days before the General Election in Scotland on the front page of the Daily Record, Gordon Brown instructed voters to vote Labour to end child poverty.
“Yet last night Labour MPs from Scotland were instructed to retain the two child cap which forces children into poverty. So Prime Minister, what changed?”
Sir Keir replied: “I’m glad he mentioned Gordon Brown because the last Labour government lifted millions of children out of poverty, something we’re very very proud of and this Government will approach the question with the same vigour with our new task force. Already we’ve taken steps, breakfast clubs, abolishing no fault evictions, decent homes.”
Mr Flynn was reprimanded by Sir Lindsay Hoyle for holding a print out of the Daily Record headline he referred to, with the Commons Speaker saying: “Props are not allowed to be used. Never mind put it down. We don’t need any more.”
SNP MP Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) later said: “In less than three weeks, he has had a significant rebellion and he has suspended seven of his Members of Parliament, all for standing up for child poverty, this from a Labour Government.
“The headlines are awful for the Prime Minister this morning, poverty campaigners are furious with the Prime Minister, is his honeymoon over before it’s even begun?”
Sir Keir replied that he would not be taking “lectures” from the SNP on what the people of Scotland want after the party returned from the General Election with a “handful” of members.
He added: “Perhaps the SNP needs to account for the 30,000 extra children in poverty in Scotland.”
Earlier in the session, Conservative Party leader Mr Sunak said: “I’m glad in our exchanges so far we have maintained a cross-party consensus on important matters of foreign policy and in that spirit today, I wanted to focus our exchange on Ukraine and national security.
“The UK has consistently been the first country to provide new capabilities to Ukraine, such as the long-range weapons that have been used so effectively in the Black Sea. Now those decisions aren’t easy, and I was grateful to the Prime Minister for his support as I made those decisions in Government and in opposition I offer that same support to him.
“So can I ask that he continues to be responsive to Ukraine’s new requests so that they don’t just stand still but can decisively win out against Russian aggression?”
Sir Keir replied: “I can assure him that we are of course talking to Ukraine about how they deal with the Russian aggression that they are facing, have been facing for many, many months, and I will continue to try to do that in the way that he did, which is to reach out across the House to share such information as we can to maintain the unity that is so important.”
Mr Sunak went on to offer the Opposition’s support to efforts to “go further” on sanctions, seize Russian assets and “use them to fund Ukrainian reconstruction”.
Sir Keir, in his reply, said: “I know the Chancellor is already beginning to have some discussions about how we can take more effective measures. Again, I will seek to reach out across the House as we do this important work together.”
The Prime Minister was also pressed by his predecessor to continue discussions with Saudi Arabia about their desire to potentially join the programme to build a new fighter jet – alongside the UK, Italy and Japan.
