Politics
Politics
PMQs 21 October 2026: Burnham and Badenoch clash over Jackdaw, inflation and gas standing charges
Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday 21 October 2026 opened with a tribute and quickly turned to energy and the economy. Andy Burnham faced Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch a week before Chancellor John Healey delivers his first Budget (our report on his business rates plans), on the day the government approved gas production at the Jackdaw field in the North Sea and the Office for National Statistics reported inflation at 3.5% for September. The full session is embedded below from the UK Parliament channel.
Aberfan, 60 years on
Burnham began by marking 60 years since the Aberfan disaster, in which 116 children and 28 adults died when a coal tip slid onto Pantglas Junior School on 21 October 1966. He told the Commons that the thoughts of the whole House were with the community and with the people of Wales. He said he had visited on Monday and heard how the injustices people suffered at the time, and in the aftermath, still hurt. In his words, it was “a day to recognise that, say sorry for it, but also celebrate the strength and spirit of a community that has stood together through adversity all of these years.”
Jackdaw and standing charges
Badenoch used her first question to press the government on Jackdaw. She said the Conservatives first approved the field in 2022 and accused Labour of dithering, arguing that Britain cannot be a serious player on the world stage if a government delays approving a single licence. She also asked the prime minister to lift the ban on new licence applications, according to the Guardian’s live coverage.
Burnham answered that the delay came because the previous government “didn’t do the process properly” in 2022, and that the decision he had now made was pragmatic. He said it would help build a bridge to a renewable future by freeing up resources to invest in clean energy. He then made the most notable announcement of the session. “I can tell the House today that I have asked the chancellor and the energy secretary to look at whether we can remove standing charges from gas bills and to report back to this House at the earliest opportunity,” he said. Standing charges are the fixed daily fee added to a bill whatever a household uses. Ofgem’s estimate for the average gas standing charge on direct debit is 29.68p a day, as reported by The Independent. Nothing has been decided: the review has been requested, and no date or figure was given.
The Independent’s political editor David Maddox noted that Burnham said Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh had looked at the decision against the UK’s climate obligations and would do the same for similar decisions in future, which he read as a signal on the Rosebank field. That is Maddox’s analysis rather than something the prime minister said. Government ministers have said Jackdaw will not lower bills this winter. On heating costs more widely, see our piece on heating oil protections.
Borrowing, inflation and welfare
Badenoch then turned to the economy. She said the national debt had reached £3 trillion, quoted what she described as an IMF downgrade to the UK’s growth forecast, and said the country spends more on interest payments than on schools, the army and the police combined. She said Burnham had not made big decisions on social care and would keep spending and borrowing more, and asked him to accept that his failure to control borrowing was contributing to higher inflation after the third rise in a row.
Burnham said he did not think she had listened to his earlier answer. He said he had taken a difficult decision to lay a path towards a National Care Service, which involves a change to the triple lock, and that he was happy to defend it. On welfare, he pointed to scrapping the Digital ID programme on his first day in office and said he was not going to apologise for “doing the small things that help people have better lives.” He asked whether the Conservatives had read this week’s Covid Inquiry report on the state of social care going into the pandemic, and said he needed no lectures from the other side on tough decisions on social care. On inflation, he said the Middle East situation was one the UK does not fully control, claimed the fundamentals of the economy were getting stronger, and told her to wait for the Budget. He also said the IMF has praised the UK’s record on deficit reduction. Those are his claims, set against hers.
Badenoch closed her questions on oil and gas, asking Burnham to accept that every barrel of oil produced in the North Sea is one the UK does not need to buy from Vladimir Putin. Burnham replied that she was asking him to take further decisions she had “messed up” when in government, and described such decisions as quasi-judicial.
What to watch next
The Budget is on 28 October. The chancellor has ruled out raising capital gains tax, and the prime minister has now asked for a review of gas standing charges, so those are the two threads worth following. For how the parties are polling going into the Budget, read our YouGov poll report. We will carry the next PMQs next Wednesday.
Sources: The Independent’s live coverage (21 October 2026), The Guardian’s UK politics live blog, BBC News live coverage and The Mirror’s live page, all 21 October 2026. Quotes are as reported by those outlets and the video above is the official record for exact wording. Photo: Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street, Open Government Licence v3.0, taken during a visit to Glasgow in July 2026, not at PMQs.
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