Starmer says he wouldn't change anything he's done as PM and claims worst-off are 'already doing better with Labour'
19 December 2024, 17:57 | Updated: 19 December 2024, 21:13
Keir Starmer has said he would not do anything differently if given the chance to relive his five months in power, despite the turmoil and criticism he has faced since coming to office
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Speaking to MPs on Thursday, the Prime Minister said that Labour had needed to make difficult decisions since taking power.
Liaison committee chairwoman Dame Meg Hillier asked him: "Is there anything that you would do differently if you were starting out now, knowing what you know?"
Sir Keir replied: "No. We have had to do tough stuff, we are getting on with it and I am very pleased to be delivering from a position of power, rather than going around the division lobbies losing every night.
"I have had too much of that."
Sir Keir also admitted that raising standards of living in the UK will take time - but claimed that the lowest paid are already feeling the benefits of a Labour government.
The Prime Minister told the Liaison Committee of senior MPs "we want people to feel better off".
The increase in the national living wage was a "pay rise for the three million who are the lowest paid" and public sector workers were also feeling the benefit of pay deals, he said.
"In addition to that, the measures that we put in place will improve living standards," he said.
"It will take some time, of course it will.
"One of the biggest mistakes, I think, in the last 14 years was the idea that everything could be fixed by Christmas. It can't.
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"The planning will take time. The change in regulation will take time, we've got a national wealth fund which is investing, getting record investment into the country, that will take time.
"But already some of the lowest paid are already feeling the benefits of a Labour government through what we did in the Budget."
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The Prime Minister also admitted that his target on housebuilding was "a stretch".
He told the committee that he would not be "defeatist" and say that it would not be possible to get the skills or the supply chains needed to build homes.
Sir Keir said: "Amongst my jobs is to chair the stock takes of the work we're doing to get the various players around the room ... to make sure that we've got the skills, the supply chains, the numbers, the targets with an assessment of where we are on the data and that's the way that we'll drive through this.
"But I'm not going to be a defeatist on this and say it's impossible to get the supply chains. I don't accept that. Be defeatist and say we're never going to get the skills. I don't accept that.
"Do I accept it's a stretch? Do I accept it's ambitious? Yes I do, but we're determined to do it.
He also suggested that rules on protecting nature might not need to be applied for every planning project.
The Prime Minister has previously criticised the £100 million structure designed to protect bats on the HS2 rail route.
He told MPs on the committee that nature protection rules could be applied more strategically rather than on every project to remove barriers to building.
The Prime Minister said: "I think we could get the balance better. I do think we should obviously take measures to protect our environment, to protect nature, of course I do, but I think that we could do it differently.
"So, one of the proposals ... that we're working on is the question of whether that balance should be struck on each and every application or project - one by one, case by case - or whether it could better be lifted so that you could look at the balance over a wider area, which I think would make a lot more sense."
He added: "I think the developer should pay into a fund that could be used to get that balance right. So, I'm not saying they should be exempted from paying in.
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"What I am saying is if you do it on a case-by-case basis you can get a lot of results which slow things down and don't seem, on the face of it, to make a lot of sense."
The PM Asked by Mr Carmichael whether he was targeting the "super rich sheltering wealth" or family farmers, the Prime Minister said: "The purpose was to raise revenue in the Budget, so it wasn't aimed at a particular group of individuals."
He added: "What we tried to do with the regime we put in place was to protect the family farm, putting in a high threshold for inheritance tax for farms, which means that if you take the figures on the estates for farms, the vast majority of them are unaffected by the changes we put in place.
"But we weren't aiming at a particular group."
Sir Keir was repeatedly asked why Ms Reeves had not agreed to a meeting with farmers.
The Prime Minister said he had met NFU president Mr Bradshaw.
Asked by Mr Carmichael whether that was "an example you would be encouraging the Chancellor to follow", Sir Keir said: "The Chancellor will manage her own diary."
As MPs on the committee laughed and Sir Keir smiled, Mr Carmichael said: "We're laughing here but we had one witness giving evidence to the select committee who, when talking about the impact on his farming business, broke down.
"So there are a lot of people who don't find this funny."
Sir Keir said he had met Mr Bradshaw to "hear for myself, first-hand from him, as to the points that he wanted to make".
Asked if that meeting was with a view to making changes, the Prime Minister said: "No, we've got the policy, we've set out the policy and I was clear about that.
"But did I want to hear what he had to say in a respectful way? Yes, of course I did."
