Wes Streeting squirms as Kuenssberg demands to know if Tory defector will get peerage
The Shadow Health Secretary issued a non-denial denial this morning after Labour celebrated its Tory MP defector.
Laura Kuenssberg quizzes Wes Streeting about possible offer
Wes Streeting refused to rule out whether their latest MP, Tory defector Dan Poulter, was offered a spot in the House of Lords for his help dealing a blow to Rishi Sunak this week.
Mr Poulter, the MP for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich since 2010, shocked Westminster yesterday when announcing he is defecting from the Tories to Labour.
Amid rumours the back-stabbing MP could be given a spot in the House of Lords for helping Labour, Mr Streeting failed to categorically rule out any such offers.
Laura Kuenssberg probed: “Did Labour offer any future baubles to Dan Poulter to get him to defect?”
Dodging the question, Mr Streeting said the Suffolk MP “has been very clear he’s going back to the NHS full-time, he’s not standing for Parliament at the next election”.
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“This idea that he’s just abandoning the sinking Conservative ship to save himself is nonsense.”
Dissatisfied with the answer, Ms Kuenssberg tried again: “Did Labour offer him anything in return for him coming across? Did you offer him a place in the House of Lords perhaps?”
The shadow Health Secretary replied with the non-denial denial: “Not that I’m aware of”.
Last night Reform UK leader Richard Tice responded to the news of Mr Poulter’s defection by asking: “How long before Poulter is offered peerage or top quango health job by Labour?”
Former deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey also said she expects “he will be rewarded with a peerage by Labour in due course”.
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Mr Poulter revealed his defection in a pre-recorded interview with the BBC, saying he can no longer look his NHS colleagues and patients in the eye and remain a Conservative.
Despite being a Tory health minister at the height of George Osborne’s austerity programme, Mr Poulter claimed: “The difficulty for the Conservative Party is that the party I was elected into valued public services”.
“It had a compassionate view about supporting the more disadvantaged in society.
"I think the Conservative Party today is in a very different place."
A furious Tory source hit back: “It’s a shame Dan didn’t make more of an effort turning up to Parliament to do the work he’s been paid to do if he feels so strongly about our NHS”.
“Clearly he’s had other plans on his mind for some time.”
Meanwhile Tory MPs slammed Dan Poulter as: “A nobody trying to be a somebody”.
In leaked WhatsApp chats, another Tory MP said: “I didn’t even know he was an MP!”
Local Tory Suffolk councillor Sam Murray tweeted: “Good riddance. So glad I no longer have to apologise for his failure to turn up in North Ipswich regularly”.
“We work so hard in North Ipswich as a Conservative group and have had to carry him for years and make so many excuses for his regular cancellations.”
