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Today, Sir Keir quizzed the Prime Minister on whether the Government should have prioritised care homes from the very start of the coronavirus crisis following claims made by the head of Care England this week.

Mr Starmer said the evidence suggested a “very serious issue” that requires an answer.

He also said the Chief Executive did not know when all care homes would be given tests, despite the Government promising the facility for them by June 6.

Hitting back at the Leader of the Opposition, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said his counterpart was “ignorant of the facts”.

He argued that despite what Sir Keir said, 118,000 care home workers had already been tested and that capacity was being ramped up.

Mr Johnson said: “As I said to him last week, which he doesn’t seem to have remembered, actually, the number of patients discharged from hospitals into care homes was 14 percent down on January.

“The guidance was changed to reflect the epidemic and that guidance was available to care homes and, of course, since the care homes action plan began, we have seen a sharp reduction in the number of deaths including care homes.”

As he confronted Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Johnson added that the UK is now testing more “than virtually any country in Europe”.

He said: “Already 125,000 care home staff have been tested, perhaps he didn’t know that.”

READ MORE: PMQs LIVE: Boris Johnson faces Keir Starmer as parents demand answers 

He added: “We are absolutely confident that we will be able to increase our testing not just in care homes but across the whole of the community.

“And thanks to the hard work of my right honourable friend (Matt Hancock) and his teams we will get up to 200,000 tests in the country by the end of this month.

“Perhaps it is one of the statistics in international comparisons he hesitates to make but actually this country is now testing more than virtually any other country in Europe.”

Labour leader Sir Keir went on to criticise the government’s response to the deadly virus and said: “Despite two million tests having been carried out – there has been no effective tracing in place since March 12 when tracing was abandoned.

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“That is nearly 10 weeks in a critical period without effective tracing. That is a huge hole in our defences, isn’t it Prime Minister?”

Mr Johnson replied that he is “confident” that the UK will have a test-and-trace operation which will allow the country to make “progress”.

He said: “And I can tell him also that by June 1, already we have recruited 24,000 trackers and by June 1 we will have 25,000.

“They will be capable of tracking the contacts of 10,000 new cases a day.”

While the debate was ongoing, BBC presenter Andrew Neil took to Twitter to criticise Mr Johnson for “trying to show he’s across the facts”.

He wrote on Twitter: “Boris Johnson is trying to show he’s across the facts in replying to Keir Starmer at PMQs. Not sure it’s working.”

But then, Mr Neil continued and exposed Sir Keir’s critical flaw of having “trouble thinking on his feet”.

He wrote: “It was interesting, though, that when Mr Johnson pushed back, Mr Starmer had trouble thinking on his feet.”

PMQs on Wednesday also saw Matt Hancock furiously invited by the House of Commons Speaker to leave the Chamber as the Health Secretary engaged in a debate with members of the Opposition from the frontbench.

Speaker of the House Lindsay Hoyle was forced to interrupt Sir Keir Starmer during Prime Minister’s Questions when he spotted Matt Hancock having a loud debate with members of the Opposition from his seat behind the Prime Minister.

Opening Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Johnson said the deaths of 181 NHS staff and 131 social care workers have been reported as involving COVID-19.

The latest figures for the Department for Health has revealed the coronavirus death toll in the UK has increased to 35,341 – and remains the second-highest in the world.

Meanwhile, data compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has the number of COVID-19 fatalities above 44,000.

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