Angela Rayner has dismissed the prospect of her ever becoming prime minister, saying there is “not a chance” she will take on the role.
The deputy prime minister said moving to 10 Downing Street would “age me by 10 years within six months”.
Speaking on ITV’s Lorraine, Rayner commented: “Even before I was in politics, I said have you ever seen a prime minister after a year or two in government?
“People always say to me do you want to be prime minister? Not a chance — it will age me by 10 years within six months.
“It does anyone who has been prime minister — it is a challenging job. To be fair to Keir Starmer there has been a lot going [on], he’s been all around the world trying to repair relationships.”
The deputy PM also suggested Labour’s welfare bill, which passed the House of Commons on Tuesday after significant concessions were granted to prospective Labour rebels, is now in a “better place”.
She said: “I would say that to be fair to my colleagues, many of them have been raising concerns privately.
“Some have not raised them privately, some have. It’s fair that the process of parliament can look argy-bargy, like everybody’s falling out, but that’s the way you get to a consensus, and when the crunch comes to a vote, that’s like a pinch point, a flash point in the commons, and what happens.
“So people might see that overall it’s chaos, but actually we’ve got to a better place now, and we’ve got the bill through parliament at its second reading. And now we’ll get into the detail.”
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Rayner also insisted that it was important that the government got its welfare reforms “in the right order”.
She told ITV’s Lorraine: “The [Sir Stephen] Timms review — that had to happen before the [Pip] changes came in and that’s what everybody was really concerned about, making sure we did things in the right order, supportively.”
The comments come amid reports that Rayner was “instrumental” in pushing Starmer to water down his flagship welfare bill.
The Telegraph newspaper reports the deputy prime minister held hours of crunch talks with Labour MPs who were poised to vote against the proposed legislation before the major climbdown, announced in the commons by disabilities minister Sir Stephen Timms.
Hours before MPs were set to vote on the government’s welfare proposals, Timms told the commons that changes to restrict eligibility for the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) will be delayed until after a review of the disability benefit — instead of coming into force in November 2026 as set out in the bill.
In the end, the bill cleared its first big hurdle in the House of Commons with 335 votes in favour versus 260 against.
However, 49 Labour MPs still opposed the legislation.
It came after MPs voted on a “wrecking amendment” to the bill tabled by Labour rebel Rachel Maskell. MPs rejected the amendment by 328 votes to 149.
42 Labour MPs voted for the amendment, with around 30 abstentions.
Rayner is set to establish a formal office of the deputy prime minister in the coming period, according to a report in The Times.
The office will take inspiration from that helmed by the late John Prescott, who served as deputy PM under Tony Blair.
Josh Self is editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here and X here.
Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for all the latest news and analysis.
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