Forensic Starmer puts Raab on the rack over slow pace of testing

Keir Starmer's first prime minister's questions lacked most of the principal elements of the weekly parliamentary spectacle, starting with the prime minister. Dominic Raab was standing in for Boris Johnson, who is still recovering from coronavirus at Chequers, and was, like almost every other MP, watching the exchanges on television.

A handful of MPs were scattered about the green benches, looking up at eight giant screens showing their colleagues zooming in their questions. There was no heckling, no cheering, none of the baying from the government benches that Jeremy Corbyn faced every week, and the quiet, passionless atmosphere suited Starmer's serious, forensic style.

He started by quizzing Raab on the slow pace of testing for the virus as the government looks set to miss its target of 100,000 tests a day by the end of April.

The foreign secretary tried to hit back by pointing to the poor performance by the Labour-led devolved administration in Wales, but Starmer soon had him wriggling again when Raab could not say how many nursing home staff had died of Covid-19.

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This has been a stress test of our resilience, and the government plan is clearly not working

"I put him on notice that I will ask the same question again next week, and, hopefully, we will have a better answer," the Labour leader said.

Finally, he asked why the government had failed to live up to its promise to ensure that frontline staff had the personal protective equipment they needed.

“This has been a stress test of our resilience, and the government plan is clearly not working. I ask the first secretary of state to tell frontline workers at risk when they will finally get the equipment they need to keep them safe,” he said.

Line of defence

Raab returned to the government's central line of defence against all criticism of its performance during the epidemic: that the National Health Service (NHS) had not been overwhelmed even during the peak of infections.

And he said every step the government took – or failed to take – on social distancing, testing and contact tracing had been on the advice of chief medical officer Chris Whitty and chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance.

“If he thinks that he knows better than they do, with the benefit of hindsight, then that is his decision, but that is not the way we have proceeded, and it is not the way we will in future,” Raab said.

Britain is increasing its testing capacity and delivery, and will soon restart contact tracing. However, its tardiness could delay the easing of social distancing restrictions because, as health secretary Matt Hancock admitted on Wednesday, the government does not know how much of the virus is still in circulation.

“The current level of incidence is unknown until we expand testing yet further, but it is far higher than where it needs to be,” he said.