Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at prime minister’s questions – UK politics live

PM to face opposition leader and MPs in the House of Commons
And he says the government should commit to ensuring energy bills do not rise above the April-June price cap.

The government should guarantee right now that it will not allow energy bills to rise beyond the April-June price cap – instead setting aside approximately £8.4bn to prevent a rise of up to £300 per household that could be coming down the track.

No, it’s not cheap.

But the alternative is unacceptable: if the price cap rises, we will see interest rate rises.

Mortgage rates up.

Bond yields up.

And inflation up – and we will be back into the doom loop that has done untold damage to our economy and caused misery for households across the UK for years now.

It’s time for the government to act decisively, eliminate the uncertainty that is plaguing people and the markets and insulate us from some of the worst economic effects of Trump’s war.

This was not a war of self-defence, there was no imminent threat.

Negotiations were ongoing.

It was, as the BBC’s international editor said, a war of choice.

People across the Middle East are terrified of what Trump and Netanyanhu’s war will mean for them and their loved ones.

And the repercussions are echoing across the world as instability spreads and oil prices spike.

People are already struggling so hard just to make ends meet.

People feel like they’re running every day just to stay in the same place.

The idea that yet again – for the second time in just a few years – that we are going to have to deal with another enormous spike in the cost of the basics is unacceptable.

It’s unacceptable because we didn’t need to be here.

It’s unforgivable that just four years after we last saw an energy price shock, that one triggered by Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, far too little has been done to protect this country, its people, and its economy – from the impact of yet another energy price shock.

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