Lindsay Hoyle is learning how to work an audience. When the Speaker announced that he would not be accepting Andrew Mitchell’s amendment to restore the government’s commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income (GNI) on overseas aid, you could almost hear the cheers in Downing Street. The potential for major embarrassment ahead of this weekend’s G7 meeting in Cornwall had been averted. Or not. Because moments later, Hoyle went on to say that he would be open to an emergency debate the following day if one were to be requested. In a point of order, Mitchell needed no second invitation. He assured the house he had the necessary numbers to win by a majority of between nine and 20 and, though disappointed the vote would not now be legally binding, the debate would give parliament the chance to express its will on the government’s unilateral decision to break its manifesto commitment and cut overseas aid by 28.6% (down to 0.5% of GNI). Hoyle looked on in satisfaction. It felt good not to be the complete pushover that many had feared after all. Being a bit of a pushover was just fine. With the main excitement postponed by 24 hours, the focus switched to Matt Hancock’s coronavirus update. Or, to be more precise, the health secretary’s coronavirus time-filler as it turned out he had little new to say about anything that he hadn’t already announced during his media appearances the day before. Not that Door Matt minds not having much to say. In fact it seems to be habit-forming. He’s made plenty of pointless statements to the Commons in the past, so one more wouldn’t hurt.
All Hancock really had to say was it was too early to say whether the government would be able to hit its 21 June target for the final easing of lockdown restrictions, the vaccination programme was trundling along quite nicely – the jab would now be offered to anyone aged 25 or older – and yet no one should take anything for granted due to the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant, first detected in India. But even here there was good news with just three of the nearly 13,000 cases requiring hospitalisation despite being double vaccinated. He also announced that the government was now looking at the possibility of vaccinating 12- to 17-year-olds. He said this in hushed tones as if he was talking about cutting edge science. Hancock didn’t seem to be aware that vaccinating children against many diseases has been standard practice for decades now. The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, generally makes an effort to engage with Door Matt even when he’s got nothing to say. But this time he could barely bring himself to keep his eyes open. He muttered something about the ongoing uncertainty before turning to privacy concerns over patient data. Wouldn’t it be better to pause the programme, to allow everyone more chance to decide whether they wanted their health data to be used by private companies as well as for medical research? Absolutely not, Hancock insisted. The fact that almost no one knew they had until 23 June to opt out of the scheme was a sign of just how much the NHS valued patient privacy. Still at least all the health secretary managed to do was waste his own time and that of everyone else. Gavin Williamson had to endure the far greater humiliation of having to explain why the school catch-up plan that had been widely condemned in the previous week as hopelessly inadequate by everyone working in the education sector would in fact be a game changer. Even more embarrassingly, he had had to thank Sir Kevan Collins, the education recovery chief who had promptly resigned on hearing what the government was proposing. “We are determined,” he said. But he didn’t sound it. Normally Gav can rouse himself to defend the indefensible, but now he just looked defeated. There was none of the usual cockiness or passion as he ran through the half-arsed programme of tutoring and summer schools he had lined up. It’s almost as if he knows there’s a cabinet reshuffle coming along in which he’s in line to be fired and can’t wait to be put out of his misery. Kate Green, the shadow education secretary, took no prisoners. Young people had been betrayed by both Williamson and the prime minister, who were offering less than a tenth of the money that Collins – who had been appointed by the government earlier in the year – had recommended. Where US students were getting an extra £1,600, UK school children were expected to catch up on just £50. The only way in which this was the revolution that Williamson claimed for it was if the aim was to level down rather than level up, with the most disadvantaged kids falling even further behind. Nor did Williamson get more than half-hearted support from his own benches. Even Tory MPs think what’s being offered is not nearly enough and the best they could do was seek vague assurances that this was just the start of the recovery plan. If only. Williamson merely sighed. On days like this, even having won the coveted fireplace salesman of the year award back in 2007 wasn’t much consolation. • This article was amended on 8 June 2021 to clarify that the government’s decision to cut the foreign aid budget from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5% of GNI equates to a 28.6% cut.