First shot fired in the Tory rebellion against tax rises

Nothing much seemed to happen at Prime Minister’s Question time.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The exchanges between Angela Rayner and Dominic Raab, deputising for Rishi Sunak who is on an overnight flight back from Indonesia, were surprisingly flat. It was only later that a backbench Conservative let off a firecracker.

Journalists who had taken their seats in the press gallery in eager anticipation of fireworks from the Labour deputy leader against a deputy prime minister at bay were instantly deflated by Rayner’s first question. She said Britain has an unshakeable commitment to Nato and our allies, including Poland”, and asked if Raab agreed that Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure showed the utter contempt that Putin has for international order”.

It turned out that the deputy prime minister did agree with that. There was less agreement on Rayner’s next two questions, about tax havens and Britain’s place in the world growth league table, but the back-and-forth was formulaic. Raab said the rules on non-dom status were stricter under the Conservatives than they had been under Labour, while Rayner had a good line saying the UK is 38th out of 38 OECD countries for economic growth: If there was a world cup for growth we wouldn’t even qualify.”

Only after these ritual preliminaries did Rayner then devote her final three questions to the allegations of bullying against her opposite number. She read out her questions carefully, determined to avoid sounding too ranty, while Raab deployed his usual defensive posture of talking quietly and sounding reasonable.