David Lammy’s first PMQs as deputy prime minister was nothing short of disastrous

Pitted against a lesser-known Tory frontbencher, the veteran Labour statesman – the first Black politician to lead Prime Minister’s Questions – was shouty and combustible, and unable to answer questions about the accidental release of yet another prisoner, says John Rentoul

The Conservatives are making the most of their status as the official opposition. They may be down to just 119 MPs, trailing the “real” opposition of Nigel Farage’s Reform by a long way in the opinion polls. But they get to ask the questions of the prime minister, or his deputy, at noon on Wednesdays – and they have been making it count.

Last week, Kemi Badenoch trapped Keir Starmer into admitting, in effect, that he was going to break a manifesto promise – several days before Rachel Reeves tried to make that admission on Labour’s own terms.

Today, Badenoch sent her substitute into the chamber to ask the questions of David Lammy, the deputy prime minister standing in for Starmer, who was on his way to Brazil.

For a moment, it looked as if James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, would be famous for 15 minutes for not being Robert Jenrick. It was almost as if Badenoch had chosen the least well-known member of her shadow cabinet to deputise for her to make the point that she did not choose her restlessly ambitious rival.

As a result, no one expected much of Prime Minister’s Questions. Especially when Cartlidge asked a rather obvious first question, about why Lammy had not apologised in person to the parents of the 14-year-old victim of Hadush Kebatu, the asylum-seeker and convicted child sex offender who was accidentally released last month.

Lammy said that he had said sorry in the Commons “for the anxiety caused” – a classic non-apology apology – after making a pointed comment that he “had expected to see the shadow justice secretary” facing him.

But then Cartlidge asked another question: whether, since Kebatu’s accidental release, any other asylum-seeking offenders had been accidentally let out of prison. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable question – but Lammy’s response revealed that all was not what it seemed. The deputy prime minister shouted at Cartlidge that he had been a justice minister “who allowed our prisons to get to this state”.

Cartlidge calmly asked the question again – and again. Each time, Lammy failed to answer and became shoutier and shoutier. By the fifth time of asking, he was in a state of fury: “In 25 years in this House, I have not witnessed a more shameful spectacle than what the party opposite left in our justice system.” He claimed to have answered the question, but he had not. Instead, Cartlidge enjoyed an unexpected parliamentary triumph.

It was only after the session that we could piece together what had happened.

It seems that Lammy knew that another former asylum-seeker, a 24-year-old Algerian national, had indeed been let out by mistake, and the justice department tried to keep the publication of the news until after Prime Minister’s Questions. But the story had leaked to the Conservatives, giving them a golden opportunity to embarrass the government.

What Lammy should have done, it would seem, was to “update the House” with the news at the start of PMQs, say how unacceptable he found the Prison Service’s failure, and that he would move heaven and earth to prevent it happening again. Then Cartlidge could only ask follow-up questions or ask about something else.

Instead, Lammy was humiliated, having already made the mistake of forgetting to wear a poppy. He opened PMQs by remarking that it is Remembrance Sunday this weekend: “We will never forget those who fought to defend our freedom.”

Calvin Bailey, the Labour MP for Leyton and Wanstead, passed his poppy to Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, who was sitting next to Lammy, so that his lapse of memory could be corrected.

All told, it was another good day for the Conservatives. Lammy tried to attack Nigel Farage, who Labour treat as the real leader of the opposition, in answer to a soft question from a backbencher about Farage saying the minimum wage is too high for young workers. Farage could not answer back, giving a cheery thumbs-up to Lammy’s dig at his adverts for gold bullion.

But, for a change, it was the official opposition that did its duty of holding the government to account today.