Starmer faces PMQs amid pressure over why ex-No 10 aide friendly with sex offender was given peerage – UK politics live | Politics

Good morning. At PMQs last week Keir Starmer had to face questions about a Labour peer with a paedophile friend. Today he seems likely to face questions about another peer in this category.

As Peter Walker reports, yesterday Labour said it had removed the whip from Matthew Doyle, who only recently became a Labour peer, having previously served as Starmer’s director of communications.

Doyle had campaigned for a friend who had been charged with possessing indecent images of children. The friend claimed he was innocent at the time, but subsequently pleaded guilty. Yesterday Doyle issued a lengthy statement apologising.

Given that Doyle’s peerage was announced in December, and that he took his seat in early January – after the details of his friendship with Sean Morton had been made public – Labour’s decision to remove the whip yesterday looks like a move timed to minimise the dangers from this issue being raised at PMQs.

But Starmer still faces questions about why Doyle was allowed to take his seat in the Lords in the first place. In a post on social media last night, Kemi Badenoch said she would not let the matter drop.

Keir Starmer handed a peerage to Matthew Doyle despite knowing about his ongoing friendship with a man charged with child sex crimes.

The Prime Minister has now suspended the whip, but he must come clean about what he was told before making this appointment.

We won’t let this go.

Last night Anna Turley, the Labour chair, said she did not think Doyle should be in the Lords at all. That was her “personal view”, she said. But Starmer is likely to be asked if he agrees.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9am: Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson holds a press conference where she is due to make “a major Treasury announcement”.

9.45am: Dan Tomlinson, a Treasury minister, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee on business rates.

Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

1pm: Starmer speaks to the women’s PLP (parliamentary Labour party).

1.30pm: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, gives evidence to the Commons energy committee.

And today Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is publishing an education estates plan, including more space for classes for children with special educational needs.

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