Sir Keir Starmer should have reassured and explained his immigration policy to a senior Welsh MP rather than telling her “you’re rubbish”, Labour peer Harriet Harman said.

Speaking to Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Harriet Harman criticised the prime minister for telling Plaid Cymru Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts during PMQs “she talks rubbish” after she called him out for using “island of strangers” in his immigration speech on Monday.

Baroness Harman said: “He should have actually explained ‘look, this is what we’re getting at. We’re it’s a communitarian message, it’s about neighbourliness, it’s about integration’.

“And he should have done that and reassured her and explained rather than just slapping her down.

“I just think to call across the chamber, ‘you’re rubbish’ – I think a prime minister has the opportunity to be a bit more magisterial in that.”

She said she has “been that woman standing there asking the prime minister a heartfelt and serious question, and had the prime minister say, ‘you’re rubbish'”.

Baroness Harman added: “I kind of went ‘ouch’ at that point, because I’ve been in that situation myself.

“I think people do want an explanation and he’s got an explanation and he should have done that rather than hit at the messenger.”

After Sir Keir used the phrase “island of strangers” while announcing a crackdown on immigration, fellow Labour MPs, businesses and industry reacted angrily.

The rhetoric was likened by some critics to Enoch Powell’s rivers of blood speech.

Ahead of PMQs on Wednesday, Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden tried to move the debate away from Sir Keir’s controversial remarks.

“I think we should focus on the policy,” he told Sky News.

“Immigration has contributed a huge amount to the UK, it will in the future, I think the public want a sense of rules around it, that is what the prime minister was speaking about.”

He said the row was “overblown” and he might use the “island of strangers” phrase “depending on the context”.

The UK’s food security and the future of farming lies in Rachel Reeves’ hands, a leading MP has said as a committee called on the government to delay farm inheritance tax changes.

The environment, food and rural affairs (EFRA) committee has released a report calling on the government to delay the reforms for a year until April 2027.

Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in the October budget farmers would no longer be allowed to claim inheritance tax relief for farms worth more than £1m from April 2026.

The move prompted multiple protests in Westminster by farmers who said it will threaten the future of thousands of multi-generational family farms.

The EFRA committee, made up of seven Labour MPs and four Lib Dem and Tory MPs, said a pause in the implementation would “allow for better formulation of tax policy and provide the government with an opportunity to convey a positive long-term vision for farming”.

A delay would also protect vulnerable farmers who would have “more time to seek appropriate professional advice”, the MPs said.

The MPs raised concerns the change was announced “without adequate consultation, impact assessment or affordability assessment”, leaving the impact on farms and food security “disputed and unclear”.

They said it risks producing “unintended consequences” and threatens to “affect the most vulnerable”.

The MPs have called on the government to consider alternative reforms.

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Alistair Carmichael, the Lib Dem chair of the committee, told Sky News: “There is a need for inheritance tax to be reformed.

“The use of land purchase by the super rich as a means of sheltering their wealth is something which is not in the public interest or farmers.

“But this is not the way to go about reform.

“The risk is you see farmers selling out, they will sell out to people who are not going to use land for food production then we risk losing food security – we’ve seen how foolish relying on exports is after Putin’s invasion.”

He added “as an outsider looking in”, the way in which the Treasury handled the inheritance tax announcement, after Labour said in opposition they would not change it, “has created a real problem of political authority” for Environment Secretary Steve Reed.

“It’s a problem the Treasury themselves can solve,” he said.

“Their own backbenchers increasingly think they should solve this and our report today gives them an opportunity to do that if they choose to take it.

“It really is up to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is over to her now.”

The committee report says before the autumn budget 70% of farmers felt optimistic about their futures, but that fell to 12% after the budget.

The survey, by the Farmers Guardian in March, also found 84% of farmers felt their mental health has been affected by the announcement.

Farmers said the government announcing the closure of applications to this year’s sustainable farming incentive with just hours to go, was also a cause.

The committee said there are other ways to achieve reform, and called on the government to publish its evaluation and rationale for not following alternative policy measures.

They also said the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has a pattern of “poor communication and last-minute decision-making following rumours and departmental leaks”.

A 21-year-old man has been charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life after fires at two properties and a car linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

Roman Lavrynovych, a Ukrainian national from Sydenham, southeast London, is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Friday, the Metropolitan Police said.

The force said officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command led the investigation because of the connections to the prime minister.

Emergency services were called to a fire in the early hours of Monday at a house in Kentish Town, north London, where Sir Keir lived with his family before becoming prime minister.

Damage was caused to the property’s entrance but nobody was hurt.

A car was also set alight in the same street last Thursday.

There was another blaze at the front door of a house converted into flats in Islington, also linked to the prime minister, on Sunday.

One person was taken to safety via an internal staircase by crews wearing breathing apparatus, London Fire Brigade said.

The head of the Crown Prosecution Service counter terrorism division, Bethan David, said: “These charges relate to two fires at residential addresses in Islington on Sunday May 11 and in Kentish Town on Monday May 12, as well as a car fire in Kentish Town on Thursday May 8.

“The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.”