Burnham says he’s minded to back Lib Dem bill for ‘black English’ and ‘Asian English’ to be census options
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks if the PM will support the proposal by the Lib Dem MP Josh Babarinde for people to be allowed to call themselves black English or Asian English on the census.
Davey says it is wrong to claim people have to be white to be English.
Shamefully, even some in this house have argued for this racist ideology. We must reject it as the Conservative leader, to her great credit, has done.
We should start with a census with the only English option, when you’re asked about your ethnicity, is white English.
[Babarinde] a proud Englishman, introduced a bill yesterday to change that to create new options like black English and Asian English. Will the prime minister support his bill?
Burnham says he has also praised Badenoch for her comments on race.
He goes on:
I haven’t looked at the detail of the bill, but I stand here thinking that I would want to support that bill to directly take on the poisonous politics that we’ve seen from some in this house who are seeking to divide us.
We must move on from a decade of division and drift in this country. We must bring people back together.
I am interested in working with anyone in this house who shares that name.
Key events
Julian Lewis (Con) asked a closed question (one tabled in advance, where the MP gets a follow-up, but it has to be on the subject previously agreed). His question was whether the threat from Russia now is as great as during the cold war years.
Burnham replied:
Compared to the cold war, rapid changes in technology, including AI, cyber warfare and autonomous systems mean we face new, complex threats.
Lewis urged the government to stop boasting about how it has increased military spending at the fastest rate since the end of the cold war. That claim does not take account of how the threat now is much greater than it was at the end of the cold war, he said.
Burnham insisted he was not compacent about the threat.
Labour’s Diane Abbott asked Burnham if he agreed “that we should never forget to honour the contribution of generations of immigrants to the society”.
Burnham replied:
[Abbott] speaks very powerfully on this issue from personal experience .. And I saw a people from around the world caring, for my dad. She is absolutely right to say that we must celebrate their contribution, as I did in my speech to the party conference.
And we must take on a politics that seeks to say to those people that they have no place here. They do.
Burnham says government considering tougher rules to deal with illegally-modified e-bikes
Martin Rhodes (Lab) asked what the goverment was doing to tackle the problems caused by illegally-modified e-bikes.
Burnham said the government was considering “tougher regulations for the sale of non-compliant e-bikes and conversion kits across the UK”. He said:
The safety risks posed by e-bikes that are running at excess speeds need to be stopped.
Burnham says current care funding rules ‘unfair’, and cross-party talks on reform to resume before end of year
Ian Sollom (Lib Dem) asks about a constituent who has been in a wheelchair since he was two and who needs care every day. Every pound he saves above £23,250 has to go into his care, he says. He asks the PM to remove this limit.
Burnham says this illustrates why the system needs to be reformed.
He says the rules are “unfair”. He says the minimum income guarantee for disabled adults is being increased.
And he says cross-party talks on social care will take place before the end of the year.
Burnham declines to back Corbyn’s call for inquiry into UK’s role in Israel’s war against Gaza
Jeremy Corbyn, the Your Party parliamentary leader, asks Burnham to ensure that more aid gets into Gaza. And he asks him to back an inquiry into Britain’s participation in “the bombardment of Gaza through his supply of weapons and security information to Israel”.
Burnham replies:
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains heartbreaking and we are doing everything that we can to put pressure on the Israeli government to allow the necessary aid into Gaza and to lift the restrictions on it.
Of course, we’ve also taken further steps in relation to sanctions, particularly, in relation to the settlements in the West Bank, to make sure that we preserve the viability of a two state solution.
We await the outcome of the negotiations following the Israeli, general election.
Burnham says Corbyn can be confident the government will follow the path it has set out.
He does not address the call for an inquiry.
Davey turns to Neets, and he says the single biggest thing to help the economy, which would get more young people into work, would be joining the single market.
Burnham says the deal he is agreeing with the EU will add 0.4% to GDP.
On Neets, he says one reason the situation is so bad for youth unemployment is because the last Tory government rejected the recommendations from Sir Kevan Collins, the Covid recovery tsar.
Burnham says he’s minded to back Lib Dem bill for ‘black English’ and ‘Asian English’ to be census options
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, asks if the PM will support the proposal by the Lib Dem MP Josh Babarinde for people to be allowed to call themselves black English or Asian English on the census.
Davey says it is wrong to claim people have to be white to be English.
Shamefully, even some in this house have argued for this racist ideology. We must reject it as the Conservative leader, to her great credit, has done.
We should start with a census with the only English option, when you’re asked about your ethnicity, is white English.
[Babarinde] a proud Englishman, introduced a bill yesterday to change that to create new options like black English and Asian English. Will the prime minister support his bill?
Burnham says he has also praised Badenoch for her comments on race.
He goes on:
I haven’t looked at the detail of the bill, but I stand here thinking that I would want to support that bill to directly take on the poisonous politics that we’ve seen from some in this house who are seeking to divide us.
We must move on from a decade of division and drift in this country. We must bring people back together.
I am interested in working with anyone in this house who shares that name.
Badenoch says Burnham does not seem to know about the legislation on the North Sea his government is passing. She says the government is “totally adrift”, and needs consultant to tell it what to think.
Meanwhile, the whole country is in limbo. Labour MPs want to pretend that Keir Starmer simply walked off into the sunset, when in reality this man knifed him in the back and now doesn’t know what to do.
Isn’t it the truth that they’re all sat there shaking their heads and wondering whether it was all worth it?
Burnham replies:
People at home will have heard that I am bringing forward a National Care Service when they ignored social care for years and years.
I am acting to get people’s energy bills down when they didn’t do it.
And I listen to her when she talks at the despatch box as though they’ve got everything right. A quarter of a million young people became Neet between 2021 and 2024, when she was in was in the cabinet. The welfare bill rose by £33bn in her last year in office, when she was in the cabinet.
When is she going to come to this house with real proposals to address those things, rather than repeating more of the same.
He says people will see his plans when the 10-year plan is published.
Badenoch says the government is legislating to ban drilling off Scotland. That is ludicrous, she says.
Burnham says the Jackdaw gas field has been approved. And the new windfarms are going ahead. He goes on:
If she wants to,address energy policy in this house, perhaps we can talk about why energy bills went up and up under the party opposite. Perhaps we can discuss how they lost public control and lost control of people’s bills and left people paying more and more.
Badenoch says Rosebank has not been approved because Ed Miliband was not in favour when he was energy secretary,
He called Rosebank climate vandalism. But then he also thought cosying up to Russell Brand would make him prime minister. So I don’t think we need to trust his judgement.
Burnham says Rosebank would have been approved if it had not been for the last goverment messing up the licensing process. He says it is a quasi-judicial matter now. But he highlights the windfarm projects announced today. (See 8.55am.)
Badenoch jokes about Andy Burnham being in the audience for a speech by the cabinet secretary, Antonia Romeo, last night.
He’s supposed to be telling her his plan, not sat in the audience while she tells him hers.
She asks why the plan for the Rosebank oil field was in the budget calculations when it has not been approved.
Burnham says Rosebank is a quasi-judicial decision.
Referring to the Tory plans for welfare cuts announced yesterday, he says:
Does she accept that so many of the people affected by what she announced are working people, people whose incomes will be hit hard in a cost of living crisis? I think the honourable lady needs to answer as to why she is making the cost of living crisis harder for people by the cuts she’s just announced.
Badenoch references a Guardian story about Labour MPs being concerned about the lack of ambition in the 10-year plan and she jokes about reports that it will include merging the DVLA with the DVSA. “Exciting stuff,” she says.
Burnham picks up on Badenoch mentioning the budget, and he says it was the most popular budget for years. On issues like social care and Neets, the government is taking big decisions, he says.
Burnham says he will announce 10-year plan for Britain before Christmas
Kemi Badenoch asks if it is true that Andy Burnham is so short of ideas for his 10-year plan for Britain that he has asked the Boston Consulting Group to help.
Burnham says he will present his 10-year plans to MPs before the Christmas recess.
(Last week he said it might not come until January.)
Burnham says options for reform at Stormont being considered, after SDLP warns its in its ‘dying days’ due to DUP obstruction
Claire Hanna, the SDLP leader, says MPs would not let one party at Westminster to stop the Commons operating. But that is what is happening at Stormont, she says, because of the conduct of the DUP. Stormont is in its “dying days” without reform, she says.
Burnham says all MPs want to see Stormont up and running and delivering. He says the Northern Ireland is working with the parties to agree a budget, and he is considering further options for reform.
Andy Burnham starts by saying all MP remember the sacrifice of all those who have served their country.
No veterans should have to sleep on the streets, he says. He says he has written to councils asking him to help him end rough sleeping for veterans.
Burnham faces Badenoch at PMQs
PMQs is starting very soon.
Here is the list of MPs who have got a question.
‘Cherries can be picked when it’s in everyone’s interest’ – ex-No 10 policy chief cautions PM about trying to rejoin EU
Back to Labour’s EU policy, and Stuart Ingham, head of the policy unit in No 10 when Keir Starmer was PM, has written a long and subtle article in the New Statesman arguing that, rather than focus on trying to rejoin the EU fully, or just the single market, Andy Burnham would be better off focusing for now on goals around which Labour could unite.
Here is an excerpt.
Where does Rejoin fit into this? If there was a referendum tomorrow, I’d vote to undo a mistake. Perhaps for some, saying so is the first necessary step of a longer journey. But I fear divisions about questions we don’t have to answer at the moment will be a barrier to unity over the questions that we do. The soft Euroscepticism inherent in Labour may harden at just the wrong moment …
Then there are the voters. The Prime Minister speaks with them when he says that Brexit has been a failure and the status quo isn’t good enough. There is scope to sell an economic and security partnership, and leave Reform and the Tories to fight over a tiny pool of voters that think it’s been a success. The arguments against Rejoin are stronger: they allow the populist right to avoid defending the Brexit it has delivered and go straight to its home territory – emotional arguments about democracy, betrayal and elites.
The reset should be promoted on its own terms. It can be a stepping stone for those with a destination in mind and a leap forward to a better deal for those that don’t. Labour, for now, is a party with Rejoiners in it rather than a Rejoiner party.
When Ingham was in Downing Street, he was working on the deals on food exports, energy policy and youth mobility that are due to be presented as a reset moment at the UK-EU summit next week. The EU regularly says it will not allow cherry picking, and that to gain the all the advantages of the single market, states have to accept all the obligations (including free movement). Ingham points out that, in practice, it is not that straightword, which is why there are opportunities for Britain that don’t involve full membership or full single market membership. He explains:
The government I advised on Europe policy made headway in getting the UK included in both the Made in Europe and European defence programmes. The EU has agreed that Britain can participate in the Ukraine loan scheme – so Kyiv can buy weapons and munitions from British firms with European capital. The UK is within the scope of draft clauses of the Industrial Accelerator Act, meaning its companies may be able to bid for large procurement contracts. The emissions trading agreement, expected to be signed this month, paves the way for British manufacturers to be exempt from Europe’s carbon import taxes, without which reindustrialisation cannot happen. Although the EU will not want it presented this way, that emissions agreement is Britain being allowed access and rights within the parts of the single market where it follows the rules. The food and drink and electricity deals, pitched to the EU as about food security and energy security, are the same. Cherries can be picked when it’s in everyone’s common security interest.
In a Bluesky thread on the Joe Martin story (see 11.04am), Will Hayward, the Welsh political commentator, says he thinks Martin may soon defect from Reform UK to Restore Britain. “Mr Martin has been making kissy faces at Restore for a while,” Hayward says. “Reform sources within that group tell me the party are deeply concerned at Restore eating into their vote and potential defections.”
Hayward points out that Rupert Lowe, the Restore Britain MP and party leader, has been tweeting in support of Martin. In one message, Lowe said:
If the Welsh Parliament is going to shut down legitimate debate around demographic security and immigration, the Restore Britain answer is quite straightforward…
Roll back devolution and shut down the Welsh parliament.
Reform UK Senedd member given speaking ban over ‘offensive’ comments about migrants replacing White Britons
The leader of Reform in Wales has said her party stands with a member who was banned from speaking in the Welsh parliament after claiming white British people were being replaced in the UK, the Press Association reports.
Reform’s Joe Martin was handed the ban yesterday after his comments were described as “discriminatory” and “offensive” by the Llywydd (presiding officer), Huw Irranca-Davies.
Helen Jenner, the Reform UK leader in the Senedd, posted a message on social media this morning saying:
Reform stands with Joe Martin.
Freedom of speech must be protected at all costs.
Speaking in the Senedd yesterday, Martin, the MS for Caerdydd Penarth, said:
Can I have a statement from your government on the demographic replacement of white British people taking place in the UK? Because the scale of change has been breathtaking. Mass immigration and differing birth rates mean that, in just 37 years’ time, in 2063, we will be a minority in our own country. That change has already taken place in London, Birmingham, Leicester, Slough, Luton and Manchester, and I don’t want it to happen here.
Indeed, at every opportunity, the majority of the electorate have wanted less immigration so that their nation can be preserved. A nation is not an economic zone, it’s not a hotel, and neither is it a charity. It’s a family, which is capable of absorbing people of all races if done at a sensible rate, but not if it’s replaced altogether.
Welsh minister Heledd Fychan responded by asking for a ruling on whether the comments were in line with Senedd rules, adding:
We have a duty for every single member of our communities that we represent. I reject division and hate. We had a question earlier to the prif weinidog (first minister) around antisemitism. We cannot differentiate between people of different religions, different sexuality, different skin colour. We are a government for everyone here in Wales, we are supposed to be a Senedd for everyone here in Wales. I reject wholeheartedly the division that is spouted by those members.
Later in the afternoon, Irranca-Davies said he considered the comments made by Martin to be “unnecessarily provocative and deliberately offensive”. He said:
Whilst it is always possible to raise legitimate policy matters in relation to immigration in this siambr [chamber], the focus of that contribution on race and ethnicity was clearly discriminatory, offensive, and detracted from the dignity of the Senedd.
This is not the first time the member has pushed the boundaries in his contributions, and I have previously warned him about his conduct.
Until I receive a clear indication that the member understands the boundaries of acceptable parliamentary conduct and apologises to the siambr, we will not be calling the member to speak.
Reform is the largest opposition group to the Plaid Cymru-led government.
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