7 key moments from Keir Starmer’s bumper grilling by MPs – from pensioners to Trump warning

Keir Starmer has said he wouldn’t change anything about his first months in power in a bumper grilling by MPs.

In his first appearance at the Commons Liaison Committee, the PM said he had been forced to make “tough decisions” to deliver change. The 90-minute session saw him challenged by a string of senior MPs who chair Commons committees on his record since entering No10.

Chair Dame Meg Hillier put the Prime Minister on the spot when she asked him what he would have done differently if he could go back and give himself advice when he was elected in July. But he stood by his record despite the backlash to decision such as winter fuel cuts, the denial of Waspi compensation and Budget tax hikes.

“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,” he said. “I have had too much of that.”

He said he had a tough inheritance, dealing with a £22billion black hole in the public finances and overflowing prisons after his election win.

MPs grilled Mr Starmer on a range of issues during the session, including defence spending, tackling pensioner poverty, the housing crisis and US president-elect Donald Trump. Here’s what you need to know.

PM told poor pensioners ‘can’t wait until Spring’

Keir Starmer was told the poorest pensioners “can’t wait until the Spring” as he faced questions on how the most hard-up will cope this winter. Debbie Abrahams said an extra 300,000 OAPs are living in relative poverty since 2013.

“Women are one of the groups are one of the groups that are disproportionately affected by this,” she said. “This is has been significantly increased by recent increases in the state pension age.

“We know that the DWP estimates the restrictions in eligibility for winter fuel payment will also add to the number of pensioners living in poverty. I appreciate increasing pension credit is very important but single pensioners just above that £11,000 threshold can’t wait until next Spring until they get that the uprating in their state pensions.”

She pressed him on what mitigations could be made. Mr Starmer said: “There are allowances in place – not targeted to pensioners in particular – but for households that are struggling as you know that are administered by local authorities that we have not only maintained but enhanced. That is in place.

“The upgrade in the pension that comes in April is about £470. Of course there was an uptick in April of this year as well, so a pensioner a year ago facing the winter, even with the winter fuel allowance, will not be as well off as a pensioner after the £460/470 next April. That’s only because we can maintain the triple lock, which we wouldn’t be able to maintain if we didn’t stabilise the economy, which is why we did what we needed to do at the Budget.”

Ms Abrahams said these people “can’t wait until Spring”. She added: “If we have a bad winter, they will be affected. I hope you will be able to come forward with some mitigations PM.”

It will ‘take time’ for people to feel better off

Mr Starmer admitted it would take time for people to feel better off but said changes to the minimum wage would help millions of lower paid workers.

“It will take some time, of course it will,” he said. “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.”

The PM also said it is still his ambition to make the UK the fastest growing economy in the G7 by the end of this parliament. He was accused of side-lining the pledge when it didn’t feature in his recent ‘Plan for Change’ blueprint.

Pressed by Labour MP Liam Byrne, the PM said insisted the growth pledge was still his aim.

‘A lot of people don’t find this funny’

The PM got a ticking off for laughing during a clash on inheritance tax changes for farmers. In the Budget, Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced tax breaks for farmland worth over £1million will be scrapped. The Treasury insists only 500 estates a year are expected to pay inheritance tax under the changes. But campaigners say up to 75,000 of the UK’s farms could be affected

The PM said he’d met the National Farmers’ Union president – and had “no issue” with meeting the union. But asked if he’d encourage Ms Reeves to do so, he added with a small chuckle: “The Chancellor will manage her own diary.”

Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael, chair of the Commons’ environment committee and who also appeared to laugh off camera, said: “I mean we’re laughing here but we had one witness giving evidence to the select committee who when talking about the impact on his family business broke down, so there are a lot of people who don’t find this funny.”

Asked how that makes him feel, the PM added: “Of course nobody is comfortable with that but that’s why I took the decision to have a meeting with the president of the NFU to invite him for a meeting with me, not with a great fanfare but for a private meeting so I could hear for myself first-hand from him as to the points he wanted to make.”

Speaking after the session, Mr Carmichael the PM “could not have been clearer that if farmers are caught and farms have to be sold then that is fine by him”.

Kids are living in ‘sewage’

A tense moment came when the PM was challenged over the state of housing – especially temporary accommodation – across the country.

Mr Starmer said he accepts the “definition of a housing crisis” and reiterated his pledge to build 1.5million homes over the next Parliament. Florence Eshalomi, chair of the Commons’ housing committee, told him that most of the MPs in the room will be able to spend Christmas “with our loved ones in a warm, safe home”, while 160,000 kids will spend it in temporary housing – much of which have horrid conditions including overflowing sewage.

The Labour MP said most of them are only in this situation because they lost the “safety net” of the Local Housing Allowance. Labour confirmed at the Budget that it would continue the freeze on the housing benefit, meaning payments will not keep up with the soaring pact of rent rises.

Mr Starmer said his government inherited “appalling” numbers of people in temporary accommodation and said money had been pledged to tackle homelessness. “It’s a terrible inheritance,” he said. “It’s record numbers and it’s shocking”

Ms Eshalomi said the money is “redundant” if you’re not dealing with the root causes that are forcing people into temporary accommodation – including the LHA freeze. She also questioned how deliverable his 1.5million homes pledge is.

Warning to Donald Trump over tariff threat

The PM said he was “not a fan of tariffs” in response to Donald Trump’s threats. Asked if he would dissuade the US President-elect from slapping tariffs on UK goods, he said: “It won’t come as any surprise to you, I am not a fan of tariffs and, therefore, we have to make sure that we avoid tariffs.

“We have got very good trade with the US, as we have got very good trade with other countries around the world. I want to improve on that.” He said he was “alive to the danger of tariffs” but he wouldn’t speculate on what Mr Trump might do.

Mr Starmer also rejected the idea that the UK would be forced to choose between Trump’s America and the EU. He said: “I think we can pursue both. I don’t accept the argument you have got to either be with the US or be with the EU, that isn’t how it works at the moment with our current trade.”

Tech giants acting like ‘burglars’

The PM was told tech giants are acting like burglars in the way they are stealing people’s work from the internet. Dame Caroline Dinenage, Tory chair of the culture, media and sport committee, grilled Mr Starmer on government plans that could allow AI firms to scrape media companies’ content, unless they specifically opt out.

She warned him he was “gambling a world-class British success story”, adding: “AI companies have scraped the internet of books, of films, of music, all created by others, without permission. It is effective the largest heist of copyright in world history.”

Dame Caroline continued: “You are proposing to take rights away and force creatives to opt back into their own copyright. It is a bit like saying a burglar can nick all your stuff and then that is all fine as long as you have got a sign up saying that that is not okay.”

Mr Starmer responded: “I don’t think they should, I think we need to get the balance right, but I also think we have a huge opportunity. We are one of the top three in the world in AI at the very point where AI is going to be transformative. That puts us in a really good position against our competitors around the world, I don’t want us to lose that edge.”

Pressure over defence spending

Keir Starmer came under pressure over when he will hike defence spending to cope with foreign threats. Labour MP Tan Dhesi grilled him on why he hasn’t set a date for increasing defence spending to 2.5% of Britain’s GDP.

The PM has promised to raise the amount spent on defence but has so far only committed to providing a “pathway” to reaching 2.5% in the Spring.

Mr Starmer said: “I do think it’s important that we have the strategic review because that is looking into the risks and challenges that we face as a country, what our current capability is and whether we need therefore to make changes to match the risk and challenges to the capability that we have.

“Therefore, what I’m reluctant to do is commit large sums of money to the budget unless and until we know the outcome of that strategic review, because this money needs to be spent well and it will only be spent well if it’s spent at the end of that exercise.”