Since taking workplace, Keir Starmer has used his opening reply at Prime Minister’s Questions very otherwise from his predecessors. On this submit, Ruxandra Serban and Tom Fleming discover how Starmer’s strategy to opening PMQs compares to that of different post-1997 Prime Ministers.
Within the UK, ‘Prime Minister’s Questions’ (PMQs) within the Home of Commons is without doubt one of the most high-profile moments of the political week. Current months have seen a lot evaluation of how Kemi Badenoch, the Chief of the Opposition, has carried out on this enviornment. Nonetheless, there was surprisingly little dialogue of how Keir Starmer’s strategy to PMQs has differed from his predecessors’. On this blogpost, we define how Starmer has used his opening solutions – to the so-called ‘engagements’ query – as a further alternative to speak the federal government’s key political messages.
Why does PMQs (often) start with an ‘engagements’ query?
PMQs begins with an change that isn’t a real query. The MP who comes first within the weekly shuffle (the method by means of which MPs apply to ask a query at PMQs) asks ‘the engagements query’, which at the moment takes the type of ‘if the Prime Minister will listing his engagements for in the present day’. In response, the Prime Minister (PM) often outlines his or her commitments for that day. The MP can then ask a supplementary query on a subject of their selecting, and obtain an extra reply from the PM.
This parliamentary ritual has developed over time. Within the Nineteen Sixties, PMs may theoretically be requested questions on any facet of presidency coverage, however diverse in how far they agreed to reply them. The PM’s personal workplace would ceaselessly switch some inquiries to different ministers when the subject was seen as extra acceptable for his or her remit. MPs would nonetheless obtain a solution, however with out the chance to instantly query the PM. To keep away from this, MPs began growing ‘transfer-proof’ questions which have been particular sufficient for the Prime Minister to reply personally and so couldn’t justifiably be transferred. These initially referred to conferences or visits overseas, or to the member’s constituency, and it was within the Seventies that MPs first began utilizing a query in regards to the PM’s engagements within the type of ‘if he’ll listing his engagements for in the present day’. This meant that the PM was assured to reply – no different minister might be liable for the PM’s engagements for that day – and that the MP may then ask a supplementary query on any matter. That query might be extra topical than was in any other case attainable, given the utmost discover interval of 10 sitting days working on the time, which, along with a rise within the general variety of questions, meant that questions needed to be submitted early to have an opportunity of being included on the order paper. Questions on engagements grew to become an everyday function within the late Seventies, and continued for use even after Margaret Thatcher acknowledged that she would cease transferring questions.
In its early type, the ‘engagements’ query seemed fairly completely different from in the present day. Inquiries to the PM have been topic to the identical guidelines as all oral questions, and have been formally questions ‘with discover’. MPs may submit both an open or a substantive query, however they have been required to additionally submit the textual content upfront, which means the ‘engagements’ query was often requested greater than as soon as in each questioning session. This observe modified in 1997 when – following a advice from the Process Committee – MPs have been suggested to ask their supposed supplementary query instantly. That is when PMQs grew to become in impact a process for questions with out discover. All questions that seem on the order paper are subsequently in principle ‘engagements’ questions (until the MP has chosen to submit the textual content of the query), however solely the primary MP truly places that query (by saying ‘Query primary, Mister Speaker’) — the others simply ask their desired supplementary query.
How did previous Prime Ministers strategy ‘engagements’ questions?
Prime Ministers’ customary response to the ‘engagements’ query is the well-known method ‘This morning I had conferences with ministerial colleagues and others. Along with my duties on this Home I shall have additional such conferences later in the present day’. Nonetheless, lately PMs have more and more preceded that reply with a further opening assertion. To hint the evolution of those opening statements, we’ve got analysed the primary 30 PMQs classes of every PM since Tony Blair (who changed two 15-minute classes every week with the one 30-minute session we’ve got in the present day). Given the size of Blair’s premiership, we additionally included his ultimate 30 classes of PMQs. We excluded Liz Truss for the alternative motive.
Desk 1 identifies how usually every PM preceded their direct reply to the engagements query with any further opening assertion. It additionally notes the (imply and median) mixed size of their total reply to the engagements query, together with any such opening assertion.
It exhibits that these opening statements weren’t initially a function of the post-1997 PMQs setup. Blair went straight to instantly answering the engagements query in all of his first 30 PMQs classes. Whereas he did initially reply the query slightly extra actually than his successors, genuinely detailing his engagements for the day, he didn’t precede this with any further assertion till late 1998. From that time, he started to make occasional opening remarks, albeit nonetheless largely framed as an account of his engagements that day, addressing subjects like Remembrance Day on 11 November 1998, a hostage scenario in Chechnya on 9 December 1998, and the homicide of 4 British vacationers in March 1999. However by the top of Blair’s premiership, such opening statements had turn into rather more frequent. They remained an ordinary function of PMQs thereafter.
The content material of those statements has advanced considerably over time. Blair’s ultimate 30 PMQs classes noticed him make 24 of those opening statements, of which 17 have been solely centered on paying tribute to navy personnel killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, and the remaining seven mixed such tributes with different messages. Tributes to fallen servicepeople have been additionally the predominant focus of Gordon Brown’s opening statements in his early PMQs classes. The identical was true for David Cameron, although he additionally mixed such tributes with feedback on a wide range of different occasions together with a royal marriage ceremony, an earthquake in New Zealand, and the rescue of trapped miners in Chile. Cameron’s successors fortunately had a lot much less must touch upon navy fatalities, however nonetheless made opening remarks ceaselessly, and lined an much more diverse vary of subjects that included terrorist incidents, pure disasters, anniversaries, saints’ days, and sports activities tournaments.
Keir Starmer thus inherited a well-established sample of PMs often utilizing their opening reply at PMQs to touch upon topical home and worldwide occasions. This will mirror PMQs being one in all their few parliamentary alternatives for such feedback, on condition that analysis suggests trendy PMs converse within the Commons far much less usually than they used to. These opening statements have been broadly non-political, seeming to mirror the PM talking as a frontrunner of the nation, moderately than of the federal government or a political occasion. PMs usually used solutions to ‘pleasant’ backbench inquiries to make bulletins or to reward the federal government, however the opening reply often remained exterior the political fray. The classes we analysed right here contained only one substantial exception to this sample – in March 2023 Rishi Sunak opened PMQs by praising a listing of presidency initiatives from the final week.
Keir Starmer’s strategy
Starmer has approached his opening reply at PMQs very otherwise from his predecessors. The desk above contains his first 24 PMQs classes, as much as 2 April 2025. Strikingly, he made a further opening assertion on each single event, by no means confining his reply to ‘This morning I had conferences …’ and so forth. Furthermore, his opening solutions have been for much longer than these we analysed from his predecessors, and round twice so long as these from his rapid predecessor, Sunak.
However a extra vital change has been within the content material of Starmer’s opening remarks. He has nonetheless included the type of topical non-partisan remarks utilized by his predecessors. Nonetheless, he has additionally begun to incorporate rather more explicitly partisan, campaigning language, utilizing his ‘engagements’ reply to set out the federal government’s essential messages and (in his view) achievements for that week.
This new strategy was first seen on 11 September 2024: after a number of feedback in regards to the royal household, Starmer introduced that the federal government could be introducing its Renters Rights Invoice later that day, and mentioned that ‘After years of inaction, this Authorities will oversee the largest levelling up of renters’ rights in a era, and I urge the entire Home to get behind it.’ At his subsequent session on 9 October, Starmer supplied comparable reward for the federal government’s Employment Rights Invoice and a forthcoming worldwide funding summit. He reverted to a extra typical non-partisan strategy for the rest of 2024, however from the beginning of 2025 used successive classes to speak the federal government’s key message for the week, corresponding to NHS reform, ‘AI alternatives’, and measures geared toward enhancing financial development. He additionally adopted a subtler strategy on 5 March, paying tribute to British servicepeople killed and wounded in Afghanistan and Iraq, in a thinly-veiled riposte to latest remarks from the US Vice President, JD Vance.
Total, it’s clear that Starmer is making extra frequent opening remarks at PMQs, and utilizing them in a way more partisan method, than any of his latest predecessors. This will mirror an intention to make use of the opening reply strategically to make the primary transfer, and to start out PMQs on the federal government’s phrases. As this strategy began a number of months into Starmer’s first yr in workplace, it might even have been formed by Kemi Badenoch’s efficiency. Going through a Chief of the Opposition that has not been significantly difficult might have offered a possibility to attempt a brand new tactic. It stays to be seen if this can become a longtime observe, or if Starmer remains to be experimenting with completely different PMQs methods.
Concerning the authors
Ruxandra Serban is a Lecturer (Educating) in Comparative Politics at UCL.
Tom Fleming is a Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at UCL.
Featured picture: Keir Starmer MP, the Prime Minister (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by UK Home of Commons.
