Keir Starmer will face Prime Minister’s Questions for the last time on Wednesday before leaving office on Monday. He will answer lawmakers in the House of Commons once more before resigning as prime minister and making way for Andy Burnham.
Starmer said at a reception in the garden of 10 Downing St. that, “I leave on Monday with good grace.” He also said, “I’m very pleased I’ve had the privilege of being prime minister.”
House of Commons on Wednesday
The session will be Starmer’s last weekly question period in the House of Commons. It comes after just two years in office, a run that began with a landslide in July 2024 and ends with his resignation next week.
He is expected to use the exchange to point to stronger protections for renters, a higher minimum wage and a law designed to stop official cover-ups after tragedies. Those are the domestic measures he has identified as his main record before leaving.
Labour Party handover
Andy Burnham is the only candidate in the contest to replace Starmer, and he is due to be announced as the new Labour leader on Friday. Starmer will then go to Buckingham Palace on Monday and announce his resignation to King Charles III, who will ask Burnham to take over.
The transition does not require a general election under Britain’s parliamentary system, so the change can happen through the party leadership and the monarch’s appointment. Labour was hammered in May’s local elections, adding to the pressure around the handover.
Paris and 10 Downing St.
Starmer attended Bastille Day celebrations in Paris on Tuesday with Emmanuel Macron, who awarded him the Legion of Honor. Back in London, he held the garden reception at 10 Downing St. for people who had campaigned for accountability after losing loved ones to violence.
That sequence leaves Wednesday’s PMQs as the last public test of a premiership that moved quickly from an election victory to a leadership exit. Starmer’s final question session will be the point where he sets out what he wants remembered before the office changes hands on Monday.
