UK’s Starmer avoids grilling at first PM question session

Keir Starmer’s first experience of being on the receiving end of prime minister’s questions passed without the typical barrage of hostile questioning on Wednesday, but he faced pressure over his new government’s approach to child poverty.

Labour leader Starmer won a resounding majority in Britain’s July 4 election, but he suffered his first, if minor, rebellion on Tuesday, when he was forced to temporarily suspend seven lawmakers for voting against the government’s position on keeping limits on welfare payments for some parents.

At the start of PMQs in parliament, Britain’s new prime minister was spared the usual pointed questioning from his opposite number, former prime minister and leader of the opposition Conservative Party, Rishi Sunak, who focused on cross-party consensus around support for Ukraine.

It was the later questioning from members of the Scottish National Party, which took Starmer to task over his refusal to abolish the two-child benefit cap, which prevents most parents from claiming welfare payments for more than two children.

The SNP’s leader in Westminster Stephen Flynn asked what had changed in Labour’s commitment to end child poverty.

“The last Labour government lifted millions of children out of poverty: something we’re very, very proud of. And this government will approach the question with the same vigor,” Starmer said, pointing to a new child poverty taskforce.

Seven Labour lawmakers were temporarily suspended for backing a SNP amendment to scrap the limit on Tuesday. Opponents of the cap say the policy pushes children into poverty, while the government has said it cannot make unfunded commitments even if it sympathizes with objections to the policy.

While Starmer once grilled Sunak each week on his government’s record, conviviality prevailed as both sides adjust to a new reality since Labour’s crushing election victory.

During a parliamentary exchange on Monday Starmer accidentally addressed Sunak as “the prime minister,” to laughs on both sides of the chamber, with Starmer quipping: “Old habits die hard.”