Opposition MPs failed to use the recall of parliament to hold Boris Johnson to account

Recalling parliament is an emergency measure designed to allow our elected representatives to keep the government up to the mark in a time of crisis. I am sorry to say that opposition MPs mostly failed to do so today. 

For Keir Starmer, the leader of the opposition, it was obviously hard to subject the prime minister’s arguments to stringent tests because they agreed with each other. Even so, Starmer could have asked more penetrating questions, particularly about the vaccination programme, rather than simply repeating a familiar list of his demands. 

He started by asking Boris Johnson for a plan, which is the weakest request possible. He then asked for support for the “excluded” – the 3m self-employed not eligible for the Treasury’s scheme; he wanted the higher rate of universal credit to continue beyond April; he wanted more pay for key workers; he said the government should cancel BTEC exams rather than leaving it to schools and colleges to decide; and he asked some questions about testing people on arrival at airports. 

Johnson was able to brush aside most of those questions with the standard non-answers that he would have deployed if this had been a routine session of Prime Minister’s Questions. The prime minister emphasised that he had been extremely reluctant to close schools; that they were the last thing to close and must be the first to reopen when restrictions are eased – knowing that Starmer has used exactly the same language. 

It was left to Conservative backbenchers to ask the important questions. Jeremy Hunt, the former health secretary, wanted to know if Porton Down, the government lab, had confirmed that vaccines are effective against the new variant of coronavirus. The prime minister said vaguely that there is no evidence that the new variant could defeat the vaccines. 

Liam Fox, the former foreign secretary, a non-practising GP who had offered to help with vaccinations, said he had been asked for evidence that he had taken courses on conflict resolution, equalities, diversity and human rights, moving and handling loads and preventing radicalisation. The prime minister said he shared people’s disbelief at such requirements, but that Matt Hancock, the health secretary, had assured him that “all such pointless pettifoggery has been removed”. 

Kate Griffiths, the Tory MP for Burton, said that she had volunteered to help with vaccinations but that the bureaucracy required to obtain patients’ consent was taking 10 to 15 minutes in each case, slowing down the programme. The prime minister offered the bland assurance that he wanted the process to be as smooth as possible. 

These were all important questions that have a chance of making government better, by putting pressure on the machine to deliver the results that people want. Opposition backbenchers, by contrast, mostly made partisan or rhetorical points that added little to the quality of our democracy. 

Most of the contributions to today’s emergency session were made by video, but distance did nothing to detract from their essential triviality. Liz Saville Roberts, Westminster leader of Plaid Cymru, was told off by the speaker for accusing the chancellor of “wilful” misrepresentation of the allocation of funds to the Welsh government – a deliberate use of unparliamentary language designed to win cheap separatist headlines. Pete Wishart, the Scottish National Party MP, asked Johnson why he isn’t as popular as Nicola Sturgeon, and if he ever wished “that he could offer the same type of leadership as her to the UK”. 

It takes some skill to make Johnson look dignified and prime ministerial, but they managed it. Johnson told Wishart that he hadn’t spent any time thinking about such things because he was occupied entirely with protecting the NHS, fighting coronavirus and saving lives. 

Other opposition MPs did little better. Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi, Labour MP for Slough, accused Johnson of saying that schools were safe one day and unsafe the next, allowing the prime minister to ask, indignantly but politely, that he withdraw the suggestion that the government had ever said schools were unsafe. Johnson’s argument is that schools are safe for children, but that they can spread the virus between households, which is not safe for old and vulnerable people outside schools. 

We were even treated to video contributions from what might have been the government had the last election turned out differently. Jeremy Corbyn, the independent MP for Islington North, filming himself off-centre next to a steel filing cabinet, said the crisis made the case for, “yes, free universal broadband for all”. Which, as Diane Abbott, Labour’s former shadow home secretary, pointed out in case anyone had missed the significance, was a policy in the party’s 2019 manifesto. 

Given that the Tory party’s internal opposition – the anti-lockdowners – had taken the day off, leaving only Desmond Swayne to ask why the new lockdown regulations are “pervaded by a pettifogging malice”, the prime minister had one of his easiest days in the Commons chamber. For a leader whose handling of the coronavirus crisis has never been wholly convincing, it was quite extraordinary that Johnson looked today like a commanding and effective prime minister. 

Today was not the finest day for parliamentary democracy.