Keir Starmer urged to apologise for ‘contemptuous behaviour at PMQs’

Sir Keir Starmer should apologise to MPs for “contemptuous behaviour” at Prime Minister’s Questions, a Conservative frontbencher has said.

Jesse Norman claimed the Prime Minister had “ignored the question and changed the subject” in 23 out of his last 24 responses to Kemi Badenoch during their Wednesday clashes.

Responding, Commons Leader Sir Alan Campbell said: “All prime ministers deal with Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) in their own way.”

Sir Keir reportedly rowed with Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle at the end of this week’s PMQs session.

And Sir Lindsay has repeatedly told Downing Street that answers in the Commons chamber should “be confined to the points contained in the question”, according to his office.

Mr Norman, the shadow Commons leader, said: “The last four PMQs have focused on the Iran war, fuel duty, North Sea oil and gas, and the defence review.

“Of the 24 responses given by the Prime Minister to the leader of the Opposition (Mrs Badenoch), 23 have ignored the question and changed the subject.

“Yesterday, we even saw the Prime Minister hectoring you, Mr Speaker, in your chair and on live television just for doing your job.

“That is a shameful record for which the Prime Minister should write to you, and therefore, by implication, to this House and apologise.

“This behaviour is contemptuous, Mr Speaker, of you, of the leader of the Opposition, but of us all, as MPs, now and in years gone by.”

“It’s Prime Minister’s Questions, we’ve got to concentrate.”

As MPs filed out from Wednesday’s PMQs, Sir Lindsay appeared to stop Sir Keir to speak with him, before the Prime Minister walked away quickly.

The Prime Minister had earlier faced questions about when the Government would publish its military funding strategy, the defence investment plan (Dip), with Mrs Badenoch asking him: “What’s the hold up?”

The Prime Minister replied that the Dip was “the first line-by-line review of defence budgets for 18 years” and went on to tell MPs Mrs Badenoch had “attempted the mother of all U-turns” on her stance towards the Middle East conflict.

Sir Lindsay interrupted Sir Keir, saying: “It’s Prime Minister’s Questions, we’ve got to concentrate.”

The Speaker has previously told the Prime Minister to focus on the questions he was being asked.

“I am sorry I am interrupting you, but unfortunately we have to stick to Prime Minister’s Questions, not leader of the Opposition’s questions,” Sir Lindsay said last.

Mr Norman told the Commons: “Our job, however imperfectly we may do it, is to pursue the truth on behalf of those we represent.

“If we give that up, then Heaven help us.

“And it is the Prime Minister’s job to answer and to hold himself accountable for those answers.

“No prime minister likes to do that but those are the rules.

“If the Prime Minister doesn’t like the rules, if he doesn’t want to offer honest answers, if he is not up to it, then he should step back and let someone else do the job instead.”

Mr Norman also criticised the Government for making announcements publicly or to the press before coming to the chamber.

“The deeper constitutional point is, of course, that in our representative system of Government, the people is Parliament and Parliament is the people – nothing good can come out of the attempt to undermine the British constitution by this means,” he said.

Commons Leader Sir Alan said: “It isn’t unusual for any minister not to give the answer that the Opposition want on a particular day.”

He also said: “When he talks about announcements to the House, he actually said that the previous government ‘on occasion’ made announcements outside of this House.

“‘On occasion’? I think it was on occasion that they actually made the announcements in this House.”

Sir Alan told the Commons: “Serious announcements should be made at the earliest convenience in this House.

“But we also understand that politics is done in a different environment to the way that it was done a decade or two decades before, and to some extent, it’s a moving environment, and Government is working in that environment too.”

A spokesperson for the Speaker’s Office said: “The Speaker is not responsible for the questions asked by members or the answers given by ministers.

“Questions to ministers should relate to matters for which they are officially responsible.

“Equally, answers should be confined to the points contained in the question.

“Every so often, the Speaker has to remind prime ministers and ministers of the rules of engagement in the Chamber.

“The Speaker has made this point to officials at No 10 on several occasions recently as well.”

Sir Keir’s official spokesman told reporters: “I’m not going to comment beyond saying that the Prime Minister attended the House of Commons yesterday for Prime Minister’s Questions and gave comprehensive answers in the House on the topics that were raised.”