Key events
Q: John McDonnell, the former shadow chancellor, says you are drunk on power, and excluding people with alternative views.
Starmer does not accept that.
Ferrari mentions various figures who have been suspended.
Starmer says there are different issues involved in those cases.
He says, within the party, there are arguments the whole time. They then take a collective view.
But he has changed Labour, he says. He says he has turned it “inside out”, so that it is facing the electorate.
And that’s it. The phone-in is over.
Q: Do you think banks should close people’s accounts because of their views?
No, says Starmer. But he says he does not believe that this is happening as much as some reports suggest.
Q: Do you think the Bank of England has failed to control inflation?
Starmer says he is not going to criticise the Bank. He says the Liz Truss mini-budget was more to blame.
Q: You have watered down your promise to spend £28bn a year on a green investment fund?
Starmer does not accept that. They would work up to spending that amount in the second or third year of a Labour government, not spending that amount straight away.
But, he says, he had to adapt the plans because the cost of government borrowing has gone up so sharply.
Q: My fear is that sewage in water could lead to a typhoid problem?
Ferrari asks if Labour favours water nationalisation.
Starmer says he does not back that. But he says he wants more accountability in the water industry. Water bosses should be personally liable, whether that is criminally or civilly, he says.
And he says the government should consider withdrawing licences from water companies.
Q: Why not common ownership from water? You backed this when you were running for Labour leader. Is this another flip flop?
No, says Starmer. He says he is practical. In some areas, he backs common ownership. But he has looked at it, and in water it would just mean paying a huge sum of money to shareholders.
Asked about Labour’s plans for more creative learning at schools, Starmer says he studied music at school and knows how valuable it is.
Ferrari plays a clip from Andrew Lloyd Webber talking about how music teaches skills like working as part of a team.
Starmer says he completely agrees.
He says the earnings of parents are still more likely to determine how children end up than their talent. He wants to change that, he says.
Q: Do you support a 6.5% pay rise recommendation for teachers?
Starmer says we have not seen the actual recommendation.
He says the government should publish that.
But he says he cannot commit to accepting that now.
Q: So you would honour it?
Starmer says he would look at it. He cannot say now what a Labour government would do in a year or two.
But these issues only get resolved by negotiation, he says.
He says that is why he would order his education secretary to keep negotiating.
Starmer says the Rwanda policy is the wrong policy.
The next caller asks if Starmer backs Tony Blair’s suggestion that there should be further co-payment in the NHS.
Starmer says he feels very strongly about this. He is committed to the NHS being free at the point of use.
Q: Tony Blair said brave political leadership was needed to save the NHS.
Starmer says he thinks Blair’s comments have been misunderstood.
Starmer reveals further detail of his ‘brief’ conversation with Sue Gray about her working for Labour
Starmer is now being asked about his talks with Sue Gray.
He says he spoke to Sue Gray in October last year.
In that call, he asked her, if she were to leave the civil service, would she be interested in working for him.
It was a brief conversation, he says. He says they left it at that.
The only other conversation came when the news that she might join Labour was leaked. At that point he called her to check she was OK, he says. That was just before she resigned, he says.
He says he was not able to talk about this in detail previously because he was asked by the advisory committee on business appointments not to discuss this.
Starmer says Labour would give London mayor more money to alleviate impact of Ulez extension on drivers
Starmer says Labour would make more money available to help London alleviate the impact of the Ulez extension on drivers.
Q: So why can’t Sadiq Khan delay it until that help is available?
Starmer says Khan is under a legal obligation.
He is facing legal action over going ahead with it, but he would face legal action if he did not, he says.
Starmer backs Ulez extension, saying mayor has no alternative – but says London needs more money to help those affected
The first caller asks about the extension of Ulez. He says it will decimate people’s lives. Sadiq Khan is “chilling” London, he says. He says he won’t vote Labour because of the policy, and he suggests the Ulez extension policy will cost Labour the election.
Starmer says he recognises how difficult this will be. “This is a lot of money,” he says.
He says the mayor has a legal obligation to do something about air pollution.
And the first Ulez was introduced by Boris Johnson, a Tory mayor, he says.
He says the question is, what can government do to help people.
There is a scrappage scheme – but it is only worth £2,000.
Starmer says other cities have had money from central government to help with clean air initiatives. But London has not had help.
Q: Do you support the roll-out of Ulez?
Starmer says he understands the difficulty it is calling …
Q: But do you support it?
Starmer says he doees not think there is an alternative. He has looked at the law.
Q: Why can’t the mayor delay it?
Starmer says he knows that Sadiq Khan does listen to people.
Keir Starmer holds LBC phone-in
Keir Starmer is holding his LBC phone-in.
Nick Ferrari is presenting. He asks Starmer about his Jonny Bairstow moment yesterday – when his speech got disrupted by protesters.
Q: Did you speak to them afterwards?
No, says Starmer. He said he had to leave for another engagement.
Teachers in England strike as minister says it is ‘impossible to say’ if pay recommendation will be accepted
Good morning. Teachers in England are on strike again today and Keir Starmer will shortly be holding his regular LBC phone-in where he is bound to be asked what Labour would do to end the dispute. In his Q&A with journalists yesterday, he had what sounded like a reasonably good answer – keep negotiating every day until there is a deal – but it was an answer that obscured how far he might go to actually get a deal.
It has been reported that the pay review body will recommend a 6.5% pay rise for teachers for 2023-24. This morning Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), told the Today programme that, if the government were to accept that, and if schools were to get the funding to pay that (without having to make cuts elsewhere), teachers would accept.
But ministers have not committed to accepting this year’s recommendations from the public sector pay bodies, and this morning Robert Halfon, an education minister, confirmed this. He told Sky News that it was “impossible to say” at this point if the recommendation for teachers’ pay would be accepted. He said:
The message from the government is that we have to be as fair as possible, given the very difficult economic circumstances — don’t forget we still have £2 trillion in debt partly caused because of the £400 billion spent on Covid, we’ve got the billions of pounds that are being spent on helping people with the cost of living and reducing energy bills.
We have to be as fair as possible to teachers and support staff, I completely get that. But we have to be fair to the taxpayer and make sure we bear down on inflation as well, as that is the biggest tax on the cost of living — that would effect everyone, teachers and support staff included.
Pressed again on this point, he said:
You are asking what is impossible to say at this point in time. The pay review bodies will publish, the government will make its decision in due course.
Starmer is on LBC at 9am.
Otherwise, it looks like it could be a quiet day politically – there is nothing much in the diary – but the God of News will doubtless provide us with something.
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