Badenoch says Starmer has not apologised for appointing Doyle and says he does not take responsibility.

She says his claims that he has never lost a fight are because "he won't step into the ring".

She then says he won't stand up to China, Mauritius or the unions and adds that Starmer has rattled through aides and is now facing another scandal with Doyle.

Starmer responds by pointing to his landslide victory and how the Tories rattled through chancellors, home secretaries, foreign secretaries and housing secretaries.

He adds that he is the prime minister clearing up the mess while Badenoch is "fighting to save her dying party".

"Nobody buys it Mr Speaker," Badenoch says, accusing Starmer of always putting "the Downing Street boys club first" and filling Downing Street with "hypocrites and paedophile apologists".

The Commons jeers at this.

She criticises the PM for failing to build a team and being unable to run the country.

She continues to discuss Matthew Doyle. Isn't Starmer ashamed that his legacy is appointing a man who campaigned for Sean Morton, she asks.

"My legacy is changing my party and winning a general election," Starmer says. He adds that Badenoch was too weak to kick Liz Truss out of her party after she "broke" the economy.

Badenoch accuses Starmer of pretending not to know about Matthew Doyle.

"He cannot explain why he gave this man a peerage," she says.

The Tory leader then says the PM pretends to care about violence against women, but in reality only cares about victims when he is "trying to save his own skin", as she references the grooming gangs scandal and Mandelson's appointment.

Starmer says he will "take no lectures" from the Tories on standards in public life, after Badenoch defended "partygate" for "months and months and months".

He then rifles through accusations of misconduct against Conservative figures including Boris Johnson and Priti Patel.

Badenoch then says the PM is "demonstrating stratospheric levels of delusion" if he thinks the problem is on the Conservative benches.

She says Starmer is throwing "everyone under the bus except himself".

She then asks about Matthew Doyle, Starmer's former director of communications who has been suspended from Labour's parliamentary party over his links with a convicted sex offender, and asks why Starmer appointed him to the Lords.

Starmer says Doyle did not give a full account of his actions, and says he therefore has had the whip removed.

Doyle, Starmer's former director of communications, was suspended from the parliamentary Labour Party on Monday after it was revealed he once had close links to Sean Morton, an ex-Labour councillor who admitted indecent child image offences in 2017. Doyle apologised, saying it was an "error of judgement".

Badenoch again asks what has changed and says that last week Starmer defended Morgan McSweeney.

She says he then sacked him and is met with jeers as MPs say McSweeney resigned.

Badenoch gestures air quotes as she says McSweeney resigned, and adds that last week Starmer also defended the cabinet secretary but is now sacking him too.

Starmer responds by saying that Badenoch said there would be no more defections from her party in January but then the shadow foreign minister resigned 48 hours later, and then the former home secretary later followed suit.

He says Badenoch "needs to wake up. Her party is dying".

Remember: Andrew Rosindell quit the Tory party and as shadow foreign minister to join Nigel Farage's Reform UK last month, as did ex-home secretary Suella Braverman.

Image source, House of Commons

Chris Mason
Political editor

A self-deprecating line from the prime minister at the end of his opening words - it is convention for him to say he had "meetings with ministerial colleagues and others" - there he was nodding to having rather more this week as his team desperately sought to ensure he had the support to stay in office.

Tackling his first question from Badenoch, Starmer says he has accepted responsibility and apologised for the "mistakes that I made", referring to the Peter Mandelson scandal.

He then publicly thanks former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney - who resigned on Sunday - who the PM says helped him win a "landslide victory".

Turning on Badenoch, he says her greatest achievement has been to make Tory membership "even smaller".

Image source, House of Commons

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has her first question for Keir Starmer.

She says that when Starmer was leader of the opposition, he said he would never turn on his staff.

What changed? She asks.

Starmer starts PMQs by telling MPs his thoughts are with the two children stabbed at a school in Brent,north-west London, yesterday.

"My heart goes out to everyone affected by this appalling attack," he says, adding his thanks to the police.

The chamber is full, the prime minister is in position, and so are we. Prime Minister's Questions is now under way.

As a reminder, we'll bring you the latest lines here, but you can also follow along by clicking the watch live button at the top of this page.

Image source, House of Commons

Brian Wheeler
Reporting from the House of Commons

This is likely to be a torrid PMQs for Keir Starmer, as he seeks to reassert his authority after a hellish week. At one point on Monday, it felt like he may have done his final Prime Minister’s Questions.

Things have calmed down a bit since then but Kemi Badenoch will be doing her level best to put the skids under him again.

She is certain to twist the knife over Wes Streeting’s alleged leadership ambitions.

But she will also seek to keep pressure on Starmer over Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador.

She is likely to question the PM about Matthew Doyle, who apologised after having the Labour whip removed over his links to Sean Morton, who he campaigned for in 2017 after Morton had been charged over indecent images of children.

Downing Street says it was not aware Doyle had campaigned for Morton when his peerage was announced on 10 December last year.

The Sunday Times published a story detailing Doyle’s association with Morton on 27 December and Doyle was sworn in as a member of the Lords on 8 January this year.

On Tuesday, Badenoch said the PM must "come clean about what he was told" before making Doyle a peer, adding: "We won't let this go.”

Image source, EPA/Shutterstock

Keir Starmer has been seen leaving Downing Street ahead of Prime Minister's Questions.

As always, it will get underway at midday. You'll be able to follow along here for the latest lines, or by clicking watch live at the top of the page.

Joe Pike and Joshua Nevett
BBC Politics

Image source, UK Parliament/PA

Matthew Doyle, Keir Starmer's former director of communications, was suspended from Labour's parliamentary party yesterday over his links with a convicted sex offender.

The peer said he would not take the Labour whip and apologised for his past association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who admitted indecent child image offences in 2017.

It comes after the Sunday Times reported that Lord Doyle campaigned for Morton after he was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016.

"At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court," Lord Doyle said.

He added: "To have not ceased support ahead of a judicial conclusion was a clear error of judgement for which I apologise unreservedly.

"I have never sought to dismiss or diminish the seriousness of the offences for which he was rightly convicted. They are clearly abhorrent and I have never questioned his conviction.

"Following his conviction any contact was extremely limited and I have not seen or spoken to him in years."

While headlines have largely been dominated by Keir Starmer's fortunes this week, here are some other happenings to be aware of:

• Seven councils in England have been given the green light to hike council tax by more than the usually allowed 5%, with three of them warning bills are likely to increase by 9%
• In Scotland, the government has paid nearly £400,000 to a campaign group which defeated ministers in a Supreme Court case over the definition of a woman under equality law
• Meanwhile, the PM's former director of communications has been suspended from Labour's parliamentary party in the Lords over his likes with a convicted sex offender - we'll bring you more on this in our next post

Peter Mandelson was appointed by Keir Starmer in 2024 to be the UK's ambassador to the US, but months later he was sacked over his links to the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

The latest tranche of documents released as part of the Epstein Files unearthed new information about the convicted sex offender's contact with Lord Mandelson.

It included bank statements showing Epstein had made $75,000 (£55,000) of payments to accounts connected to Mandelson, who said he had no record or recollection of receiving the sums. There were also emailed showing Epstein sent £10,000 to Mandelson's partner Reinaldo Avila da Silva in 2009. There is no suggestion Da Silva was involved in any wrongdoing.

The release sparked Mandelson's resignation from the Labour Party after more than four decades. It also included emails which appear to suggest he forwarded on market-sensitive information to Epstein when he was business secretary under Gordon Brown in 2009.

The Metropolitan Police have launched a criminal investigation into allegations of misconduct in public office.

Mandelson has not commented on the emails, but the BBC understands his position is that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain.

As we reported earlier, Starmer's chief of staff resigned over the matter on Sunday, taking "full responsibility" for advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson.

• Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has said this week it's "clear" the Labour Party has "lost confidence in Keir Starmer" and it's "still a matter of when, not if" he steps down
• Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said it’s time for Labour to "stop the infighting and get on with fixing the country", adding that if they can't do that they must call a general election
• Reform UK's Nigel Farage told a rally Starmer should resign, as should any PM who can't command the Commons, their own party, and "doesn't have respect internationally"
• SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn also called for Starmer to resign - and branded Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar's calls for Starmer to go "naked self-preservation"
• The Green Party said it is "time for a different kind of politics", days after its leader Zack Polanski also called on the PM to step down

Political air has been cleared for Starmer - for now - but key issues remainpublished at 10:56 GMT

10:56 GMT

Chris Mason
Political editor

The prime minister wore the smiles of a survivor, and his team wore expressions of relief, at a cost of living event yesterday.

The magnitude of Monday, the genuine peril the prime minister faced, meant that many including some officials in Downing Street thought for at least a while that Starmer might have to announce his resignation before the day was out.

But the scale and imminence of the threat prompted the depth and breadth of hastily expressed and (potentially time-limited) support we then saw from the cabinet and later from MPs.

It has cleared some political air for Starmer for now.

But the fundamentals, the catalysts that drove events towards this week's crescendo, remain unaltered.

An unpopular government led by an unpopular prime minister will continue to prompt those on his own side to ponder alternative leaders, unless it and he respectively become less unpopular pretty quickly.

But it is also true that for many, many Labour MPs, whatever their view of their leader, the prospect of a turbulent leadership contest, while in government, feels irresponsible and potentially very damaging to them.

• Read Chris's analysis in full here

Image source, PA Media

It’s been one of, if not, the most challenging weeks of Keir Starmer’s premiership - and today he must face MPs at Prime Minister's Questions.

In case you've missed what's been happening - here's a quick rundown.

Sunday: The PM's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney dramatically quit, taking "full responsibility" for advising Starmer to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador in 2024, despite Mandelson's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein being publicly known at the time.

Monday morning: With Starmer now bidding to shore up his leadership, his director of communications Tim Allan also quit.

Morning afternoon: Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar became the most high profile Labour voice to call on Starmer to resign, saying the "distraction" of the Mandelson scandal "needs to end". But Starmer's cabinet stood by him, publishing messages of support on social media.

Monday evening: Starmer received an enthusiastic response after addressing a behind-closed-doors meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He also received public backing from three potential leadership challengers - Angela Rayner, Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham.

Tuesday: Speaking at an event, the PM said he would "never give up" on his fight for the "millions of people held back because of a system that doesn't work for them". Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, however, said it was "still a matter of when, not if, [Starmer] goes".

• PMQs will get under way at midday and when it does, we'll bring you live updates. You'll also be able to watch the Commons session at the top of this page.