With Prime Minister Keir Starmer away at the COP 30 climate summit in Brazil, yesterday’s [5th November] PMQs saw chaos for both sides as deputies stepped in to replace the normal Kemi vs. Keir Wednesday showdown.
On Labour’s side it was Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary David Lammy filling in, while for the Tories it was the somewhat obscure Shadow Secretary of State for Defence James Cartlidge.
Standing at the dispatch box, Lammy made history as the first ever black person to answer Prime Minister’s questions on behalf of the government.
Asylum controversies
Cartlidge chose to focus all six of his questions on asylum. He began by bringing attention to the Epping hotel controversy and recent botched release of Hadush Kebatu.
Kebatu was a migrant from Ethiopia and arrived in the UK on a small boat in June of this year. Following his arrival, Kebatu was accommodated in the Bell Hotel in Epping.
In July, Kebatu was arrested and charged with the sexual assault of a teenage girl.
His arrest sparked anti-immigration protests outside the Epping hotel, and a court case in which the council attempted to block the use of the hotel to house asylum seekers.
In September Kebatu was sentenced to 12 months in prison. On the 24th October he was mistakenly released, sparking a police manhunt.
He has since been re-arrested and deported to Ethiopia.
Cartlidge opened his questions today by asking if Lammy had apologised to the family of the girl assaulated by Kebatu.
In response, Justice Secretary Lammy said that he had already “said sorry for the anxiety caused while Kebatu was at large” in a statement on the matter.
Cartlidge continued to push on the same theme throughout PMQs, pressing Lammy to directly state that “no other asylum-seeking offender has been accidentally let out of prison.”
Despite Cartlidge’s best efforts to press Lammy, the Justice Secretary refused to directly answer the question. Instead, Lammy repeatedly slammed the Tory record on prisons:
“We inherited a complicated system that the Conservatives set up that was letting people out on the sly. That is part of the problem, and we are trying to fix it.”
“Under the Conservatives’ watch, prisons were in a mess. Suicides went up, prison officers were cut, and 20,000 neighbourhood police officers were lost.”
Cartlidge’s miscalculation
Cartlidge was not impressed with Lammy’s response to his questioning – so much so that he asked it five times consecutively – using up five of the six questions allocated to the opposition leader during PMQs.
This then caused confusion, as Cartlidge attempted to rise yet again, seemingly unaware that he had used up all six of his questions.
This attempt to ask a further question was blocked by Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, who moved on to questions from other MPs.
Attempting to correct his earlier error, Cartlidge called a point of order at the end of the session to ask whether Lammy was aware of a police manhunt reported in The Telegraph that had been launched “for a second asylum seeker who was mistakenly freed from prison.”
The story was then broken shortly after Cartlidge ended his questions – this final point of order was the big reveal that Cartlidge had been attempting to build up to over the course of his questioning. If only he had been able to get his numbers right.
It was revealed by The Telegraph that Algerian national Ibrahim Kaddour-Cherif was mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth last Wednesday [29th October]. It it understood that Kaddour-Cherif is not an asylum seeker, but had overstayed a visitor visa.
It also came out later in the day that another prisoner, British national Billy Smith, had also been mistakenly released from HMP Wandsworth on Monday [3rd November].
Police are still hunting for the two prisoners.
As Lammy is Justice Secretary, this is his area of responsibility, and should be his area of expertise – which again explains why Cartlidge put so much emphasis on it through his questioning.
Lammy’s poppy
It was not just Cartlidge that made unfortunate errors in PMQs – Lammy himself got off to a somewhat unfortunate start, forgetting to wear a remembrance poppy. This was despite the fact his opening remarks were in tribute to Remembrance Sunday.
It was up to Lammy’s fellow cabinet minister Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to secure a poppy and correct this mistake.
Around halfway through the session he paid tribute to her for this: “I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) for ensuring that despite wearing a new suit, I have managed to put my poppy on.”
Not a great look for Lammy when trying to represent the government.
Maybe what this PMQs ultimately shows is that it’s time for Keir and Kemi to return to the dispatch box.
Featured image via House of Commons / Flickr.
