Sir Keir Starmer has attacked Rishi Sunak over the “shocking state” the Tories have left the country in during the cost of living crisis.
The Labour leader said living standards were on the floor after 13 years of “Tory failure”, as he pressed the prime minister on what he will do over rising energy bills.
Speaking at PMQs he said: “After 13 years of Tory failure, the average family in Britain will be poorer than the average family in Poland by 2030. That’s a shocking state of affairs. If the Tories limp on in government we are going to see a generation of young people learning to say Auf Wiedersehen in Polish, aren’t we?”
Mr Sunak blamed the rise in the cost of living on the war in Ukraine, adding: “And I just remind the honourable gentleman what we are doing to ease people through that.”
But Sir Keir said it’s “not as complicated as he pretends” as he called on the PM to “get rid of the loopholes in his botched windfall tax and finally choose family finances over oil profits.”
“Oil and gas companies are making vast, unexpected profits whilst working people face misery of higher bills,” he said.
“He can boast all he likes but companies like Shell didn’t pay a penny in windfall tax last year and they’re still not paying their fair share now.”
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Rishi Sunak replied: “He seems to forget as Chancellor I introduced a new tax on energy companies. Energy companies will pay 75% tax rate on extraordinary profits, comparable, indeed higher than other North Sea nations.
“Now that’s what his shadow levelling up secretary called for recently but I’ve got news for them, we did it a year ago, they’ve got to keep up. Now I know they claim to support levelling up but they really do need to keep up.”
