As it happened: Raab and Rayner spar over taxes and defence in PMQs

1. Dominic Raab and Angela Rayner have been facing one another in the House of Commons
2. The deputy PM and Labour deputy leader stood in at PMQs while Boris Johnson attends the Nato summit in Madrid
3. Feisty exchanges covered issues ranging from tax rises to rail strikes, defence spending and last week's by-election results
4. Rayner said the PM was "losing the country" and attacked his goal of staying in office until the 2030s
5. The deputy PM hit back saying Labour's "plan is no plan" and "champagne socialism is back"
6. Raab said it was "not the right time" for a second Scottish independence referendum, after the SNP said it wanted one next October

Thanks for joining us

Thanks for joining us for coverage of Prime Minister's Questions today.

Updates were brought to you by Chas Geiger, James Harness, Joseph Lee, Victoria Lindrea, Richard Morris, Arryn Moy, Heather Sharp and edited by Claire Heald and Jasmine Taylor-Coleman.

The questions will stack up again for noon next Wednesday. Do join us then.

Lively exchanges between Raab and Rayner

Iain Watson

Political correspondent

Both main party leaders were absent from PMQs - as is traditional when the PM is abroad.

With Keir Starmer's fate - and Angela Rayner's - in the hands of Durham police, (after their lockdown drink with colleagues while working in Durham) it is unsurprising that Labour MPs are asking 'what if?'.

Angela Rayner didn't act as though she was about to fall on her sword and seems to relish her chance to put the government on the spot (or spots - given the number of topics she crammed in)

As reporters filed out of the press gallery post PMQs one veteran remarked 'this puts Keir under more pressure - she was really lively.'

'Lively' isn't usually a word associated with Dominic Raab, but with his beleaguered boss out of the country, he pressed all the right buttons to rally his side of the house - including accusing Angela Rayner of champagne socialism - in this instance sipping the bubbly at the opera.

But while that may go down well in the cut and thrust of PMQs, it risks suggesting that people from working class backgrounds could be seen as out of place at Glyndebourne.

Interestingly, in a huddle with journalists after PMQs, a Downing St spokesman made clear the PM encouraged people to attend cultural events.

Four things we learned today

It was a rumbustious PMQs today as the deputy leaders stood in for their chiefs. Here's we what we found today:

1. Cost of living: Angela Rayner said by 2030, a million more people will be using food banks unless action is taken to address high energy and food bills. Tory MP John Baron also jumped in on this, and complained the UK tax burden is the highest it's been in 40 years.
2. Rail strikes: Dominic Raab said the Labour Party needed to stand up to those on strike, accusing Ms Rayner of having "flip-flopped all over the place" on the industrial action.
3. The SNP's campaign for independence is in full swing: SNP MPs stood up and quoted examples of Scotland's wealth of natural resources as well as talking about their democratic right to hold an independence referendum in October 2023. Mr Raab repeatedly said the UK worked better together.
4. Conservative MP Tim Loughton asked for the government to give coroners powers to investigate stillbirths, Raab promised a government announcement on the issue shortly. While Labour's Rosie Duffield asked about violence against women, and asked for the right to an abortion to be enshrined in UK law formally, Mr Raab said there was consensus across Parliament for abortions in the UK.

Missed PMQs? Here's Raab and Rayner's exchange in full

Missed PMQs? Watch Raab and Rayner's exchange in full

In case you missed Prime Minister's Questions, here's Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab and Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner facing off across the despatch box.

They stood in for PMQs while Prime Minister Boris Johnson is at the Nato summit in Madrid.

Before the questions began, the pair offered their condolences to the family of cancer campaigner Dame Deborah James and to the family of Zara Aleena who was killed in Ilford on Sunday.

Proceedings then turned to the Conservatives' losses at recent by-elections, Boris Johnson's party leadership, tax rises, defence spending and "champagne socialism".

Watch: Rayner and Raab clash over cost of living

PMQs: Raab and Rayner on food banks and poverty

The rising cost of living was one of the topics the two deputies clashed over today, with Labour's Angela Rayner accusing the government of being "out of touch" and saying "at this rate by 2030 a million more people will be using food banks".

"How many people will be pushed into poverty before he says enough is enough?" she asks.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab says the Labour Party should be clear in standing up to rail strikes if they want to help working people.

He also accuses Rayner of "champagne socialism" for attending the opera.

Raab promises decision on stillbirth investigations

Conservative Tim Loughton asked for the government to act to give coroners powers to investigate stillbirths, speaking of "shocking revelations" in recent years about the deaths of babies at several hospitals.

The deputy PM and justice secretary says stillbirth is an "appalling tragedy" that has "devastating" consequences for families - and promises a government announcement on the issue "very shortly".

Welsh MP says governnment has contempt for rule of law

Prime Minister's Questions has wrapped now but we are just bringing you the last aspects of the questions today.

Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville-Roberts accused the government of contempt for the rule of law and devolution in equal measure. She took aim at Dominic Raab's draft Bill of Rights, as he is also justice secretary as well as standing in for the PM.

"They are scrapping Welsh law against our will; denying Scotland the right to choose their own future," says Saville-Roberts.

"Will he prove me wrong by enshrining self-determination in his Bill of Rights?" she asks the deputy prime minister - who announced the bill last week.

Raab replies that he believes the Bill of Rights will "strengthen our tradition of freedom" and curb abuses, as well as "injecting a bit more common sense into the system".

Survivors of sexual violence pressured into silence

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran asks about cases where she says survivors of sexual violence have been pressured into signing non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and gagging clauses by their universities.

No victim of sexual assault harassment should ever be coerced into silence by the very institutions that are meant to protect them, she says, and asks whether the government will back her bill to ban the use of NDAs in cases of bullying and misconduct?

Raab says he will look very carefully at any proposals she has and "we've got to do everything we can to protect woman and girls in this country".

He says he's relieved that the volume of rape convictions this year is up two-thirds.

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Tory MPs accused of hypocrisy on protests

Iain Watson

Political correspondent

Perhaps the line sounding most spontaneous at PMQs was Angela Rayner's charge of hypocrisy aimed at Conservative MPs who were making quite a noise in the chamber when she spoke.

She pointed out new legislation was now silencing protestors outside parliament.

This was probably a reference to Steve Bray - a megaphone-armed pro-EU, anti-Conservative protestor who has been quite a fixture in Westminster since the Brexit referendum.

His amp and bullhorn have been confiscated by police.

It wasn't just the politicians he hollered at, but he made many uninvited guest appearances when reporters were live on TV from Westminster.

Women are under attack over abortion - Duffield

Labour MP Rosie Duffield says British women are under attack, in the form of assaults, and women's participation in elite sport is also being undermined.

She asks for the government to enshrine "a woman's right to choose" into law.

Dominic Raab says the UK law is that women have a right to choose, and he doesn't want to see the UK go down the American path of "litigation" in courts.

He says he thinks it is right MPs decide on what's best in the case of abortion law in the UK.

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Scattergun approach from the deputies

Iain Watson

Political correspondent

In the clash between the deputy leaders, both seemed to favour a scattergun approach.

Angela Rayner's topics ranged from by-elections, poverty, defence spending, tax rises and the PM's position.

It was almost like testing a range of election attack lines to see which ones would hit home.

The Dominic Raab shield consistently was train strikes, but he also seemed to lob a whole range of prepared ammo in her general direction - questioning her commitment to nuclear weapons and raising the fact she served under Jeremy Corbyn.

But for all that the encounter was less explosive than anticipated.

Scotland has started the campaign for independence - Blackford

PMQs: Blackford and Raab on Scottish independence referendum bid

The SNP's Westminster Leader Ian Blackford says "Scotland's First Minister has set the date and started a campaign" after Nicola Sturgeon pitched for a new referendum on independence yesterday. He says the referendum will take place on 19 October 2023.

He says the Westminster government is breaking international law and dealing poorly with the issues of the day. "In the weeks and months ahead, we will make the positive case for independence," he states.

Deputy PM Dominic Raab says "it's not the right time for another referendum, given the challenges we face as one United Kingdom". He says the people of Scotland want "their two governments to work together".

Blackford says the government doesn't "have the right to block Scottish democracy," and he says the Scottish Conservative leader has previously said more votes for the SNP meant another vote for independence, which Scottish voters then did.

Deputy PM Dominic Raab says Blackford is "airbrushing history" and that Scots suffer a "huge tax burden" and Scotland has worse-performing schools than England and Wales.

He says he thinks Scotland deserves better.

We'll take no lessons from Labour on defence - Raab

Dominic Raab says spending on defence is rising to the highest levels in Europe, saying he will "take no lessons" from Angela Rayner on the issue.

He says the first thing she did as an MP in 2016 was to vote against the nuclear deterrent the Trident weapons system, leaving the UK exposed.

The deputy PM also says she campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn, who he says would take the UK out of Nato.

Rayner says MPs criticising their leader

Rayner says that when asked about the PM's plans to stick around until 2030, one Conservative MP said "he's lost the plot", and a former Conservative leader said the country would be better off under new leadership.

Now the PM is at war with his own defence secretary after confirming he will break his manifesto pledge in increasing defence spending, she says.

Under this government, she says the country will have less troops, less planes, less ships. The only thing the PM is interested in is defending his own job, she says.

She asks: How many troops have to lose their jobs?

Rayner criticises new UK protest laws

Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner says the government is "acting in a militant way" and "while they should have been at the negotiating table, they were at the banqueting table squeezing hundreds of thousands out of their donors".

She says the recent changes in protest laws show that the government "don't like it when the public say what they think of them".

She quotes Conservative MPs who have been critical of Boris Johnson's leadership, saying the "only thing the prime minister's interested in is saving his job".

Raab says Rayner should stand up to strikers

Dominic Raab says if Labour wants to help working people it should be clear in standing up to "militant, reckless strikes".

He accuses his opposite number Angela Rayner of having "flip-flopped all over the place" on the rail strikes, and asks where she was during the first strike - answering his own question and saying she was at Glyndebourne for the opera.

"Champagne socialism is back in the Labour party," the deputy prime minister says.

House of Commons

Private jets and foodbanks

Angela Rayner says Raab pretends to empathise with those struggling with the Tory cost of living crisis, but she says he spent over £1m in nine months on private jets.

At this rate, by 2030, a million people be using foodbanks, she says, and asks how many more working people will be pushed into poverty by his PM before he says enough is enough?

Rayner: How much longer will taxes rise?

Labour's Deputy Leader Angela Rayner says she'd "revel in the opportunity" to allow the British public to decide what they think of the current government, urging Raab to "call a general election".

Working people will pay £500bn in tax hikes by 2030, she states. She asks how long this can go on for before the government realises "enough is enough".

Raab replies that the best way for the Labour party to help working people would be to stand up against "the militant strikes" by the RMT last week.

He accuses Rayner of "flip-flopping" over the train strikes.

Labour's plan is no plan, says Raab

The deputy prime minister defends the government's record, saying there are near record levels of youth unemployment and they will cut taxes next month.

"Their plan is no plan," he says, referring to Sir Keir Starmer reviewing Labour's policy.

He quotes former Labour PM Tony Blair saying there is a "gaping hole in Labour's policy offer" and says Rayner is "playing political games".

House of Commons

Rayner challenges Raab on tax rises

Rayner says she wants Sir Keir Starmer to be the PM of the country and it can't come quickly enough.

She says the PM wants to cling on to the 2030s, but the PM's own backbenchers can't stomach him for another eight minutes, and she doubts voters will stomach him for eight seconds.

She says by the 2030, at this rate the British public will have endured 55 tax rises - how many more tax rises will this government inflict on working families?

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