Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden left MPs in hysterics as he opened up his PMQs performance with a cutting takedown of Angela Rayner.
Dowden wasted no time before digging into his Labour counterpart amid questions about her living arrangements.
Rayner had opened proceedings by criticising Tory “desperation” to discuss her living arrangements.
“The public want to know what this government is going to do about theirs”, she said.
Oliver Dowden mocked Rayner to open PMQs
PARLIAMENT
“Natalie, from Brighton, has been served with two no-fault eviction notices in 18 months. She joins nearly a million families at risk of homeless because of this party’s failure to ban this cruel practice.
“Instead of obsessing over my house, when will he get a grip and show the same obsession with ending no-fault evictions?”
Dowden quipped in response: “It’s a pleasure to have another exchange with the right honourable lady in this house.
“That’s the fifth in 12 months. Any more of these and she will be claiming it as her principal residence.”
Dowden’s comment prompted loud jeers from surrounding MPs as Rayner sarcastically laughed along.
The war of words did not stop there as the Labour deputy leader accused Dowden of having “stabbed” the Tories’ “biggest election winner” Boris Johnson in the back to “get his mate into No.10”.
It was a battle of the deputies at today's PMQs
PARLIAMENT
Angela Rayner faced questions over her living arrangements
GB NEWS
Dowden countered the jibes by suggesting the “right honourable landlady” Rayner should step down.
She has faced scrutiny about whether she paid the right amount of tax on the 2015 sale of her Stockport council house because of confusion over whether it was her principal residence.
If she is found to have committed a crime in relation to her living situation a decade ago, Labour’s deputy leader has vowed to “do the right thing and step down”, but remains confident she has followed the law at all times.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is in Berlin which prompted Dowden to step in on Wednesday.
He used the session to highlight the Government’s plans to boost defence spending, with Rayner saying: “We all want to see 2.5 per cent, the difference is that we haven’t cut the army to its smaller size since the Napoleon.”
“Never mind some secretive deep state, it’s the state of the Tory party that’s the problem. They’re in a deep state of sewage”, she continued.
“After 14 years they’ve failed renters, they’ve failed leaseholders and they’ve failed mortgage-holders.
“But I read with interest that (Mr Dowden) has been urging his neighbour in No 10 to call an election because he’s worried they might get wiped out.
“Has he finally realised that when he stabbed Boris Johnson in the back to get his mate into No 10 he was ditching their biggest election winner for a pint-sized loser?”
