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29 January 2025

PMQs review: Starmer is finally up for a fight

The parliamentary battle over workers’ rights has commenced.

By Rachel Cunliffe

Well, that was explosive. Last week, I wrote about how Kemi Badenoch was trying a new tactic at PMQs: eschewing her previous approach to ask Keir Starmer six questions on a single topic, the Conservative leader instead tried to pick holes in a key piece of government legislation. She did similar this week.

The headline issue of the day is, of course, economic growth. The Tories can hardly argue this priority is the wrong one (the necessity of growth is something that unites people across the political spectrum, from the Labour government all the way to followers of Liz Truss). In fact, Badenoch began by noting Rachel Reeves had “embraced a series of Conservative policies”. Instead, she pressed Starmer on whether the government’s flagship workers’ rights legislation meets his own “growth test”. Spoiler alert: Badenoch doesn’t think it does, the Prime Minister disagrees.

This time, the Tory leader had done her homework (or perhaps one of her staffers did it for her). She described specific proposals in the Employment Bill (which she predictably renamed “the Unemployment Bill”) that could potentially raise costs for businesses, such as giving workers the right to claim sick pay or take their employers to tribunal for unfair dismissal from day one. Branding these a risk to the growth the Chancellor is so determined to get, she asked Starmer repeatedly if he would drop them.

This is probably the most effective PMQs Badenoch has had so far. She succeeded in drawing attention to parts of the bill that employers are most worried about (she flagged the government’s own analysis that the legislation would cost businesses £5bn a year), and managed to highlight the contradictions of the government’s dash for growth. She made her usual pop at Labour being in hock to trade unions, calling the bill “the biggest expansion of trade union powers for a generation”, by pointing out how the legislation makes it easier for workers to strike, which is (she argued) “catastrophic for growth”. And she drew attention to wealth creators fleeing Britain – a key Conservative talking point.

As usual, Starmer had a defence ready – helped by how, for all Tories despise the proposals, there is popular support for many of the changes in the bill. “I think they’re good for workers and good for growth,” Starmer insisted, dodging the specifics of Badenoch’s questions and noting that the Conservatives “consistently vote against any protections for working people”. The PM returned to that theme in a later question from a fellow Labour MP about to have his second child, pointing out that “thanks to the Employment Rights Bill, which they oppose opposite, 30,000 more fathers will get paternity leave”.

This is one of the fights Labour seems happy to have, based on a consensus within the government that increasing GDP alone is not enough if voters don’t feel better off. And part of making them feel better off is increasing the sense of security people have about their working conditions and redressing the power imbalance between employers and workers.

Still, Badenoch is right that some employers, particularly small-business owners, have real concerns, especially given the extra burdens imposed on them in last autumn’s Budget. She didn’t manage any knockout blows today, but if unemployment starts to rise she will no doubt return to this subject.

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She will have to come up with a better way of arguing for it, however. Badenoch earned herself a slap-down from the Speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, for accusing the Prime Minister of misleading the House last week over the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and her line that “he doesn’t want to talk about the Employment Bill, because he doesn’t know about it” fell flat. Put simply, while there may be elements of government legislation the PM hasn’t given a huge amount of attention to, the idea that “forensic” former lawyer Keir Starmer is less across policy detail than a woman who cites “personal experience” when asked to provide evidence for her claims is never going to land.

On the subject of lawyers, as I predicted the first time she used it at the start of this month, Badenoch latched on to her line for Starmer to “stop being a lawyer and start being a leader”. She didn’t seem to consider, however, that the PM might have had time to come up with a response of his own. “We know she’s not a lawyer, she’s clearly not a leader – if she keeps on like this she is going to be the next lettuce,” Starmer retorted, to a chorus of laughter. Another cease and desist letter from Truss is surely imminent.

One final word on the government’s growth agenda: the Employment Rights Bill is not the only instance in which the pursuit of growth runs against the thorny realities of day-to-day politics. Ed Davey, who always chooses his questions with care, pressed Starmer on whether the government would consider rejoining the EU customs union, or at the very least begin talks about the new pan-European customs area (known as PEM). The Lib Dem was sure to couch his question in terms of the growth quest while attacking the Tories, framing closer ties with the EU as a way to “start removing the growth-damaging trade barriers set up by the Conservatives”. Starmer ducked the PEM question by reiterating the government’s red lines on the customs union (something George Eaton covered in today’s Morning Call newsletter).

This PMQs was a reminder that to govern is to choose – and the government isn’t quite as determined to choose growth over all else, regardless of what Reeves may say.

[See also: DeepSeek has exposed America’s AI fiction]


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