PMQs: Starmer admits 'mistake' over PM's criticism

Sir Keir Starmer has said he was "wrong" to describe Boris Johnson's claims he backed the European Medicines Agency as "complete nonsense".

Mr Johnson accused the Labour leader of wanting to stay in the agency, at Prime Minister's Questions.

This was angrily denied by Sir Keir. Reports the two men continued the row afterwards were played down by Labour.

But the party has now issued a statement to say Sir Keir had "misheard" the prime minister.

Sir Keir thought the PM had "falsely" accused him of wanting the UK to be part of the EU's vaccine scheme, which the party said was not the case.

But it acknowledged that the Labour leader had previously expressed support for the European Medicines Agency.

The EMA is an EU body which evaluates new medicines and authorises the use of vaccines. However, individual countries within the EU can use an emergency procedure that allows them to distribute a vaccine for temporary use in their domestic market without EMA approval.

The exchange between the pair followed concerns from Sir Keir that the restrictions at the border are not strong enough to prevent new variants of Covid coming into the UK.

Mr Johnson defended the policy and said it had allowed the UK to get on with the vaccination programme.

"If we had listened to [Sir Keir] we would still be at the starting blocks," he said suggesting that membership of the EMA would have slowed down the UK's vaccine programme.

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What did Keir Starmer say about the European Medicines Agency?

By Reality Check

In an exchange over coronavirus, Boris Johnson said that, when it came to vaccinations, Sir Keir Starmer "wanted to stay in the European Medicines Agency [EMA] and said so four times from that dispatch box".

The EMA has been slower to approve Covid vaccines for the EU than UK regulators.

The Labour leader denied this: "The prime minister knows I've never said that from this dispatch box or anywhere else, but the truth escapes him."

We've found two occasions when he did speak up in favour of the EMA. They were from 2017 and made in the context of the ongoing Brexit debate back then.

For example in January 2017, Sir Keir he said in a parliamentary speech: "Why would we want to be outside the European Medicines Agency, which ensures that all medicines in the EU market are safe and effective?"

After Prime Minister's Questions, a Labour spokesperson said: "On a number of occasions the prime minister has wrongly claimed that Labour wanted to join the EU's vaccine programme.

That is inaccurate and the claim has been found to be untrue."

Sir Keir had "assumed" the prime minister was "making the same false accusation again," the statement added.

"Keir accepts that, on this occasion, the prime minister was referring to old comments about the European Medicines Agency and Keir admits he was wrong and made a mistake in his response."

Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth praised his leader for acknowledging the error, saying: "I think it's a good thing that if a politician makes a mistake he holds his hand up... I think it's refreshing, I wish more politicians would do that."

There have been reports that Sir Keir and Mr Johnson got involved in an altercation on the subject after leaving the Commons chamber but Labour MP Chris Matheson, who was with his party leader, said "there was a brief chat... nothing more to it than that."

And a Labour source told the BBC: "They had a perfectly reasonable conversation as they often do after PMQs."

Asked about the alleged incident, Mr Johnson's press secretary Allegra Stratton said: "I have seen the reports but I haven't seen the prime minister since he went to the Chamber so I can't confirm or deny that."