"No substitute for parliamentary scrutiny"

In the biggest health crisis in over a century, the country`s parliament is still on holiday! As the daily briefings have shown all too clearly, there is, as Keir Starmer says, "no substitute for parliamentary scrutiny", but why has the "chorus of cross-party calls for the recall of parliament" taken so long (As virus death toll nears 10,000, parties unite to demand the recall of parliament, 12.04.20)? It`s not as though the government took the advice of the World Health Organisation on testing, dealt with the problems of insufficient protective equipment promptly, or even ordered the lockdown quickly enough!

 Excuses about the problems associated with social distancing in the House of Commons are irrelevant, as it is patently obvious that debates and questioning could have been taking place before Easter along the lines of the "virtual question time" held with Sturgeon in Scotland. Possibly then, this government could have been forced into both taking preventative rather than belated remedial measures, as in the case of care homes, and into debating an exit strategy which considered all aspects of the effects of lockdown, including those on mental health!