Starmer praises Abbott and hails diverse Commons in first speech to parliament as PM – UK politics live

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said he was “optimistic” before his talks with the BMA junior doctors’ committee today (see 1.17pm) and he used the same word after their meeting.

In a statement issued after talks were over, he also said he was “angry” about the way junior doctors are treated in the NHS and that there was “a lot we can do to change that”. He said:

I met face to face with the junior doctors committee today to hit the reset button on relations between the government and junior doctors.

Patients, staff, and the NHS have already paid too high a price due to strike action, and I’m optimistic that we can bring this to an end.

It’s not going to be easy. This government has inherited the worst set of economic circumstances since the second world war. But both sides have shown willingness to negotiate and we are determined to do the hard work required to find a way through. I am angry about the way the junior doctors are treated in the NHS, and there is a lot we can do to change that.

Junior doctors are the future of the health service and I want to work with them to turn around our NHS.

I’m looking forward to meeting them again next week to discuss what went wrong in past talks, and to make further progress on finding a solution to this dispute.

James Wharton, the Conservative peer and former minister, has resigned as chair of the Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England.

Wharton’s appointment to chair the nominally independent regulator in 2021 was controversial because of his close ties to the then prime minister, Boris Johnson (he had run Johnson’s campaign for the Tory leadership) and for his lack of relevant experience in regulation or higher education.

A Department for Education spokesperson said:

The Department for Education would like to thank Lord Wharton, for his service as chair of the Office for Students, through a period of change and challenge at the OfS.

Lord Wharton’s resignation has been accepted. The process to appoint an interim chair is underway, and a permanent replacement will be announced in due course.

During Wharton’s tenure the OfS was rebuked by the House of Lords’ industry and regulators committee for its lack of political independence, with the committee arguing that the OfS’s actions “often appear driven by the ebb and flow of short-term political priorities and media headlines”.

The regulator was also criticised for its “nonchalance” in dealing with the mounting financial stresses facing universities, and for losing the sector’s trust.

Boris Johnson has posted a message on X attacking the government for getting rid of levelling up. (See 9.41am.)

Axing levelling up shows lack of ambition and a failure to believe in this country’s potential. Labour will axe Brexit next. Then they will pointlessly whack up taxes. The drift backwards has begun.

The government insists it is just the slogan that it dropping, not the intention to address regional inequalities.

Junior doctors in England have described their meeting with Wes Streeting today aimed at resolving their pay dispute as “positive”.

As PA Media reports, more talks are expected to take place next week, Dr Vivek Trivedi and Dr Robert Laurenson, co-chairmen of the British Medical Association’s (BMA) junior doctors’ committee said afterwards.

Trivedi said:

It was a positive meeting, we were pleased to be able to meet the secretary of state and his team so quickly after the general election – it signifies the urgency that they’re placing on resolving this dispute which has already lasted 20 months.

The meeting today was positive and we’ve already agreed to meet again next week with the secretary of state to further discuss how we can progress.

Today we talked a little bit about some of the roadblocks that have prevented us from progressing so far, and how we can navigate through those to reach a resolution.

Laurenson added:

This secretary of state actually wanted to learn what was going wrong and why things were stalling, and we’re happy to have those conversations.

This meeting was definitely a positive step, but I don’t think we can place … a certainty on how quickly things are going to take to resolve, or what might need to happen to make things resolve.

This was definitely a collaborative talk, and I think it’s fair to say we have no plans at the moment to call for strike action.

Laurenson said that the talks today covered Streeting’s plans for reform, and that the BMA wanted to hear what he was considering. He went on:

This is a complex negotiation and it’s going to take some time.

This was a positive first step, but that’s all it was the first step. There’s much more meat that needs to be added to the bones before we’re going to be able to come out with any sort of agreement.

Now it’s just down to the government to be able to come up with a credible offer through the series of negotiations that we’re about to go into.

Trivedi said the BMA did not expect a resolution today. They just wanted to be listened to, “which is what happened,” he said. He said if both sides continued in good faith, he hoped they could reach a resolution.

Keir Starmer chose to affirm, rather than swear his oath on the bible. He said:

I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles his heirs and successors, according to the law.

Back in the world outside the House of Commons, Ben Houchen, the Conservative Tees Valley mayor, has given an interview to Times Radio in which he did his best to bury Suella Braverman’s leadership bid.

Houchen, a Johnsonite Tory (which means he is often assumed to be on the right, although Boris Johnson and Houchen are not small state obsessives and arguably they are more leftwing than Rishi Sunak), said he thought Braverman had already “shot herself in the foot” as a leadership candidate.

He explained:

I don’t think [what Braverman is offering] is a credible offering and the MPs and the members that I speak to are not interested in the divisive, rightwing politics of Suella Braverman.

The fact that she continues to entertain Reform, and even in an interview the other day didn’t rule out joining Reform, shows just how out of step she is.

I also think if the Conservative party decides to go down the route of somebody like Suella Braverman, then we can absolutely see ourselves in opposition for generations to come.

The road of redemption for the Conservative party can be as long or as short as we wish to make it. And the idea that we should be more rightwing – that is not the Conservative party that I recognise. And I absolutely wouldn’t support that. She, before the leadership contest has even started, has shot herself in the foot …

Suella Braverman could make her case if she wants to put herself forward for leadership. I think she’ll fail. I think it’s not something that the Conservative party will entertain.

And I think what you will find is the vast majority of the mainstream Conservative party recognises that it’s not about ideology why we lost. It wasn’t because we were too leftwing or too rightwing. It was about trust. It was about competence. And it was about the fact that the public had lost all confidence in us in being able to deliver effective governance.

MPs are now swearing in.

Edward Leigh and Diane Abbott, as the father and mother of the House, went first, followed by Keir Starmer. Other ministers are now taking the oath.

In the Commons Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, has just taken the oath.

In a statement, he tells MPs the arrangements for swearing in over the next few days.

He reminds MPs that they will be on camera when swearing in.

And he says the government has told him that the House will rise for the summer recess on Tuesday 30 July.

MPs are back in the Lords now, where Lindsay Hoyle is telling the royal commission that he got the job of speaker. His spiel includes a line saying that, if he mucks up, it will be his fault, not the Commons’.

In response Angela Smith, on behalf of the commission, tells Hoyle that His Majesty will always place the most favourable construction on Hoyle’s actions.

Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader at Westminster, thanks Hoyle for treating all MPs equally, including those from small parties.

Adrian Ramsay, co-leader of the Green party, says the Green MPs are all grateful for the support they have had. They are conscious of the need to represent their constituents, he says.

Colum Eastwood, the SDLP leader, says he is looking forward to holding the government to account on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland.

Sorcha Eastwood, the Alliance MP, praises Hoyle for looking after the interests of smaller parties.

Jim Allister from Traditional Unionist Voice is the last party representative to speak. He says his priority is to stop Northern Ireland being subject to EU law.

And that’s the end of these proceedings. The Commons is now suspended.

UPDATE: Allister said:

We must end the partitioning of our kingdom by a foreign border, and we must end a situation where 300 areas of law in Northern Ireland are not controlled by this House, not controlled by Stormont, but controlled by a foreign Parliament, that is an appalling constitutional afront. And my focus in this House will be in playing my part in seeking to redress that gross inequity.

Gavin Robinson, the DUP leader, gives a short speech paying tribute to Hoyle.

And Nigel Farage gets called next as leader of Reform UK.

He says he has not sat in the Commons before, so he cannot judge him by experience. But he says he can judge Hoyle by how he is seen by the outside world.

We can judge you from the way the outside world sees you. I don’t just mean United Kingdom, I mean the world because Prime Minister’s Questions time is global box office politics, and it’s pretty clear everybody that you act with great neutrality. You have bought tremendous dignity to the role as speaker so we absolutely endorse you entirely for this job.

Farage goes on to say that Hoyle is better than “the little man that was there before you” – John Bercow. He says he disgraced his office “dreadfully’. He did his best “to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country”.

Some MPs start to protest about Farage going party political. But at this point Farage ends.

UPDATE: Farage said:

We absolutely endorse [Hoyle] entirely for this job. And it is, I must say, in marked contrast to the little man that was there before you and besmirched the office so dreadfully in doing his best to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country. We support you Sir fully.

Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, welcomes the new Scottish MPs to parliament. But there are more of them than he would like to have seen, he says, joking about the large number of Scottish Labour MPs elected, at the expense of his party.

He says he and Hoyle have not aways seen eye to eye. (In the last parliament Flynn said the SNP no longer had confidence in Hoyle, after he gave a controversial ruling that stopped MPs voting on an SNP backbench motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.) He goes on:

In politics and in life,I think it’s important to a bygones be bygones, and to focus on the future.

Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, goes next. He says the Liberal Democrats want to hold the government to account as they clear up the mess left by the previous government.

There seems to be a bit of grumbling about the fact that Davey is getting party political, which is frowned on on a day like this.

Diane Abbott is speaking now. She congratulates the 304 new MPs. And she says she is glad they get a proper induction process. When she was first elected, MPs just got a bunch of keys, she says.

When she was first elected, there were only 40 female MPs, she says. Now there are 264, she says. She pays tribute to what her predecessor as mother of the House, Harriet Harman, did to help this happen.

UPDATE: Abbott said:

When I was a new member in 1987, there were only 40 female members of parliament. Today we have 264, and some of us are glad that we have lived to see this. And I can’t speak about the increased numbers of female members of parliament without referencing my predecessor Baroness Harriet Harman, who did so much to work to have an equal and diverse House.

We are going into very tumultuous times, and historically, this House has played a role in these events both nationally and internationally. And I’m sure it will be the same going forward, and we will be presided over in the excellent way of the speaker elect.

Edward Leigh goes next. He says his predecessor as father of the house, Peter Bottomley, advised him to “have fun, do some good, and make people happy”. That is what the speaker does, he says.

Rishi Sunak is speaking now.

He congratulates Starmer on his victory, and he says MPs can argue vigorously, as he and Starmer did over the election campaign, “but still respect each other”.

He says MPs are there to serve their constituents, and he urges the new arrivals not to foget that.

He says he has a message for his party.

Let me begin with a message to those who are no longer sitting behind me. I am sorry. We have lost too many diligent, community-spirited representatives, whose wisdom and expertise will be missed in the debates and discussions ahead.

Keir Starmer is now speaking. He congratulates Hoyle on his re-election, and starts by recalling how Hoyle support Craig Mackinlay when he returned to the Commons having had his hands and feet amputated after he got sepsis.

He congratulates Edward Leigh on being father of the House.

He says this parliament is the most diverse by race and gender the country has ever seen. It has the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs of any parliament in the world, he says.

And he also pays tribute to Diane Abbott, saying she has done so much over many years to fight for a representative parliament. He says he welcomes her back.

(Starmer glosses over the fact that Abbott almost did not get re-elected, because she was suspended from the PLP until almost the last moment. It was widely assumed that Starmer did not want her back.)

Starmer says he hopes the new parliament will replace the “politics of performance with the politics of service”.

He says they all have a duty to show that politics can be a force for good.

UPDATE: Starmer said:

Mr Speaker-elect you preside over a new parliament, the most diverse parliament by race and gender this country has ever seen.

And I’m proud of the part that my party has played, proud of the part that every party has played in that. Including, in this intake, the largest cohort of LGBT+ MPs of any parliament in the world.

And given all that diversity, Mr Speaker-elect, I hope you will not begrudge me for a slight departure from convention to also pay tribute to the new mother of the House, Diane Abbott who has done so much in her career over so many years to fight for a parliament that truly represents modern Britain. We welcome her back to her place.

Edward Leigh moves the motion, that Hoyle should be speaker. The vote is taken by acclamation. There are loud “ayes”, and no one shouts no.

Then Hoyle is “dragged” to the chair by Cat Smith and David Davis. That is a tradition intended to recall the time when speakers were reluctant to take the job, because several of them had their heads chopped off by the monarch.

Cat Smith (Lab) is speaking now, moving the motion that Hoyle should be speaker. She is a fellow Lancashire MP and she starts by saying he is a great champion of the county.

On his qualifications for the job, she says he is hugely experienced, and has championed the interests of backbenchers. He is “annoyingly right about many things”, which is a good Lancashire trait, she says.