It comes after the House of Commons went into recess early on Wednesday - a week earlier than planned - due to the outbreak, with MPs not set to return for a month.

And questions were raised over whether a return would be possible amid calls for a virtual Parliament.

Huddersfield MP Mr Sheerman said: “We’ve now given this present Prime Minister the ability to run the country like Donald Trump in the White House. With no one to answer really difficult questions.”

He said he did not agree with the Commons recess stretching to a month - a week longer than planned - despite Labour co-operating with the measures, and felt the virtual press conferences held daily meant the Government was not being scrutinised in the same way.

Mr Sheerman said: “It was total co-operation actually to come up with the wrong result in suspending the House of Commons for so long, our whips were involved, our Shadow Leader of the House, they were all involved and it’s a little cosy stitch up, I don’t agree with it.”

He said a Government of national unity could be discussed after Jeremy Corbyn was replaced as leader on April 4, but Mr Sheerman said he was “cautious” about the idea.

He said: “The Government of national unity may sound very seductive but in most democracies the best way of tackling any administration and keeping it on course is a healthy democratic process and being accountable to the opposition.”

He added there was “so little original thought” and recommended looking to New Zealand, where Parliament has been replaced with a special select committee chaired by the leader of the opposition to hold the Government to account.

He said: “You can set up a system there to still maintain the integrity of accountability, so I am unhappy about that.

“All-party solutions are sometimes very, very good. Cross-party working is all very good. But at the end of the day there’s like the toughness of accountability.”

Mr Sheerman said it was issues such as the impact on the charity sector which he feared would not be addressed now Parliament was not sitting.

And he urged the Government to make use of - and protect - the sector during the coronavirus crisis.

Mr Sheerman said charities and the voluntary sector had been hit hard by coronavirus as charity shops, a main source of income, had to close and fundraising events cancelled.

But he said workers and volunteers were best placed to know their communities, so should be mobilised to help in the effort to tackle the disease.

Mr Sheerman said: “I've got wonderful local charities, for example Forget Me Not for the children's hospice, a really great team, very lively in the heart of the hospital community.

“But suddenly they're in serious trouble because all these things have hit them at once.”

However he said: “On the other hand, they’ve got this really dedicated team of professionals who could be easily empowered - if the 80 per cent of salaries were paid - could be with the local council helping to identify and look after that significant percentage of really vulnerable constituents in every area.”

The Government announced community hubs would be set up to coordinate local responses and support.

And Mr Sheerman, who has written to Boris Johnson to express his concerns, said these charity workers would be able to feed into those.

“Most hubs have got to be run by people who know their community, are professionals, and many of these charities are just the right people. Some of them, like the Welcome Centre in Huddersfield - which again is in trouble because it runs a food bank - but they’ve got this real potential for being drafted into the hub, doing the very job that the Prime Minister said is at the heart.”

He added: “Here we’ve got small charities that could just be empowered very quickly and they’ve got bases, they could swing immediately into action. It would be so sad if they had to wind up.”

Barry Sheerman: 'Government should look to New Zealand so we can still hold them to account on coronavirus'