Gavin Williamson licks his wounds in the Commons

Of all the government ministries grappling with the impact of the pandemic, the Department for Education has probably had the most torrid – and least impressive – time. There is currently no sign that things are improving, either: in the past week, ministers have had to deal with a highly politically-toxic row over the quality of free school meals for children during lockdown. That row formed the backdrop to today’s education questions in the Commons, where Gavin Williamson and his colleagues were very visibly licking their wounds.

Williamson was accused – as he is every time he appears in the Chamber – of being ‘incompetent’, with Labour’s Kate Green complaining that the food parcels were ‘entirely in line with the government’s own guidance. He shot back: 

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‘As the honourable lady will know, if she had taken the time to read our guidance, that actually those food parcels didn’t meet the expectations or the guidance that we had set out.