Is Rishi Sunak going to announce the election date later today? Speculation was – once again – so rife that the Prime Minister might be about to make some kind of announcement that the question came up at Prime Minister’s Questions. And he didn’t answer it. When SNP Westminster group leader Stephen Flynn asked him, Sunak replied that there would be a general election in the second half of the year – which we already know because he cannot now call one for sooner than July anyway.
Keir Starmer did not ask about the election. The Labour leader focused on the recommendation in this week’s infected blood inquiry report that a duty of candour be made statutory across the public sector. His opening question was whether the Prime Minister agreed that ‘we will only make real progress if we tackle the lack of openness, transparency and candour that Sir Brian Langstaff identified as having prolonged the victims’ suffering for decades?’ Sunak agreed, and said, ‘We will listen to them and ensure that nothing like this can ever happen in our country ever again’.
Starmer continued, pointing out that the scandal was not unique. He then focused in on the duty of candour question. ‘I can’t think of a single example where that duty of candour should not apply to all public servants across the board, and I don’t think it’s possible for any of us to stand at these dispatch boxes and honestly say “never again” unless we address it.’ He asked whether Sunak agreed that it was time for the duty of candour to be enshrined in law across the board. Sunak repeatedly said that the government needed to take ‘time to digest the gravity’ of the report and that ‘we are sympathetic’ to the suggestion.
As the exchanges wore on, it became clear that the more interesting answers to the Labour leader’s questions would have come from Starmer himself, rather than Sunak, because regardless of when the election is called, there is little time left for the current government to get on and implement the changes demanded by Sir Brian Langstaff. Starmer mentioned that he understood the importance of reform, because he had led a public service (MPs laughed at that), but leading one service is not the same as trying to overhaul the culture across the board through statute and other reforms.
Sunak, meanwhile, wanted to talk about the news that inflation has fallen to 2.3 per cent, and so did many of his backbenchers. But the session will be remembered mostly for the return of Craig Mckinlay after suffering from sepsis. All MPs wanted to welcome him back, and at the end, he thanked them. He also joked that when the Speaker visited him in hospital, staff had thought he must be really ill because he’d already got the undertaker in (a reference to Lindsay Hoyle’s black ceremonial garb). He paid tribute to Sunak for quietly visiting him regularly, and asked for more awareness of sepsis symptoms so that others might be able to avoid his fate as a quadruple amputee. He was cheered and applauded by colleagues from across the House, with a particularly warm welcome from Starmer, who said Mckinlay’s return exemplified public service.
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