Ministers tease Labour frontbenchers about party’s predicament

Ministers appear largely to have given up on taking scrutiny from the Labour party seriously, if today’s Education Questions was anything to go by. Both Nicky Morgan and Sam Gyimah had come armed with jokes and jibes about the Opposition’s predicament, which were designed to deflect from a rare co-ordinated Labour attack over the implementation – or lack of – of the Conservatives’ flagship manifesto promise to double free childcare for three and four-year-olds, and questions about the attainment gap. Jenny Chapman asked about that promise – and whether one in three families who were told they would get free childcare would in fact receive no additional care at all. Gyimah replied:

‘Well, I thank the honourable lady and welcome her to her post. I look forward to her future contributions as a vice chair of Progress, especially as I now understand this to be a front for hard right views in the Labour party.