PMQ: Health Secretary Scandal

Starmer opened by talking about the controversy regarding Johnson’s former Health Secretary. He said that it had been revealed that the health secretary had gotten into a relationship with Johnson’s non-executive director. However, the job of the director is to issue challenges against government officials regarding their decision. Starmer pointed out that this was a conflict of interest.

He asked Johnson why he did not fire the health secretary right at that moment.

Starmer quickly pointed out that the health secretary had been changed over the last five days - something that he considers to be lightning speed. He said that Starmer had failed to fire his deputy leader over the last three days, before finally making the decision to promote her. 

Starmer said that the health secretary resigned, and before his resignation, Johnson considered the case to be closed; furthermore, he said that Johnson did not have the right to take credit for the Health Secretary’s resignation.

Johnson made clear that both the Health Secretary and the Non-Executive Director were both replaced, in what he viewed as the right response to the situation. Although, Johnson had admit that families had to make sacrifices during the pandemic, he said that the vaccine rollout has been working, and will “allow the people of this country to work forwards towards freedom day which I devoutly hope will come on July the 19th,” he said.

However, Starmer made clear that there are families who had to endure being separated from loved ones in hospitals. In some circumstances, patients in hospitals ended up dying without being able to see their loved ones. On the other hand, multiple different secretaries, including the Health Secretary, had violated rules that they had created. Starmer said that this was important because “millions of people made huge and very difficult sacrifices to follow the rules his health secretary had introduced,” he said.