With schools set to reopen, the crunch is yet to come for Gavin Williamson

Gavin Williamson might be forgiven for hoping the worst is behind him.

Over the last two weeks, the embattled education secretary has come under fire for his handling of this year’s school exams fiasco from pupils, parents, teachers and even other Conservative MPs.

As a former chief whip, he knows how to deal with backbenchers. But pressure from his fellow Tory MPs might be only just beginning.

The reopening of schools in just over a week’s time is in danger of becoming a crunch issue for both Mr Williamson and Boris Johnson.

The prime minister has set himself and his colleague a high bar with his pledge to get all children back in the classroom at the start of September.

He has declared it the government’s “moral duty” to reopen schools and warned the move is critical to the future of the economy.

At the end of a fortnight marked by mounting questions over competence much now rests on how comfortable parents feel next week.

Ministers hope the statement yesterday by Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, will go a long way to steadying nerves.

But surveys suggest many parents are still cautious.

During this week’s row over the government’s plans to lift a ban on evictions, one Tory MP said the mood among backbenchers assessing their own government’s strengths and weaknesses was such that they made their concerns known and “just waited for the inevitable U-turn”.

Another warned that if schools did not open Tory MPs would be “baying for Williamson’s head, if they are not already”.

The problem for ministers is that the issue does not stand alone. The return of schools is at the centre of a series of other policies.

As the furlough scheme shudders to a halt between now and the end of October, ministers will be scrabbling to get more and more employees back to work.

But many parents will need to feel safe leaving their children at school all day before they can even think of returning to an office.

Many families warn that they are at the end of their tether. Having held on for five months balancing work and full-time childcare it will take very little to tip some over the edge, leaving at least one parent forced to pull out of the workforce.