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PMQs: Rayner tells Dowden that he is no Heseltine

At Prime Minister's Questions deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner called back to the 1990s in reference to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's absence from the chamber.

The Labour MP and her Conservative counterpart Oliver Dowden were stepping in for their party leaders while the PM attended a Nato conference in Lithuania.

Ms Rayner said that the last time a prime minister had "missed two sessions in a row with other engagements" had been in 1996 drawing parallels with an exchange between former deputy leaders Michael Heseltine and John Prescott.

She told Mr Dowden she was "proud to be filling the boots" of Mr Prescott. The deputy PM replied criticising Labour's former leader Jeremy Corbyn by saying the UK would have abandoned Ukraine and Nato.

Dowden and Rayner clash on child poverty at PMQs

12 July 2023

Prime Minister's Questions

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