15 key moments in BBC Question Time debate as Rishi Sunak mauled on stay TV

Rishi Sunak endured a brutal BBC Question Time mauling as he was held to account over a string of Tory failures.

The PM was grilled over NHS waiting lists, the unfolding betting scandal and his ill-fated National Service scheme on a torrid evening in front of a live audience. He was the overwhelming loser in a debate that saw three other party leaders – Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey and John Swinney – also face tough questions.

Mr Sunak was also asked if he was embarrassed by the chaos his party has put the country through in the last seven years. And he was met with cries of “shame” as he tried to defend his much-maligned Rwanda deportation scheme, which was branded “inhumane”.

Fiona Bruce hosted the crunch debate exactly two weeks before the country goes to the polls on July 4. Mr Sunak needed something spectacular to try and turn around his fortunes, but ended up leaving with a whimper.

Here we look at some of the key moments from the debate.

1. Rishi Sunak asked if he’s embarrassed over chaos

The Prime Minister faced a brutal first question after he took to the stage.

Audience member Kevin asked him: “We’ve had, five prime ministers in the last seven years, and one of them managed to last for six weeks. As a result. I think we are something of an international laughing stock. I’m asking if you would confess to us tonight, even just a small amount of embarrassment, to be leading the Conservative Party into this election campaign?”

Mr Sunak said he’d made it clear from the start of his premiership that errors had been made, singling out Liz Truss. Referencing his first speech as PM he told the audience: “I said very clearly that mistakes had been made.

“And that’s why I was standing there in front of you. In fact, you may remember I spent the summer before that arguing against the policies that my predecessor had suggested were right.”

2. PM says he’s ‘angry’ over betting scandal

Mr Sunak said he was “extremely angry” about allegations of improper betting as he was confronted on live TV.

A Question Time audience member demanded: “Aren’t these emerging allegations about betting on the election date, the absolute epitome of the lack of ethics that we have had to tolerate from the Conservative Party for years and years?”

The PM responded: “Well, like you, I was incredibly angry, incredibly angry to learn of these allegations. It’s a really serious matter. It’s right that they’re being investigated properly by the relevant law enforcement authorities, including a criminal investigation by the police.

“And I want to be crystal clear that if anyone has broken the rules, they should face the full force of the law.”

Pressed on why he hadn’t kicked out Tory figures embroiled in the scandal, he said: “If anyone is found to have broken the rules, not only should they face the full consequences of the law, I will make sure that they are booted out of the Conservative Party.”

3. Teens could have bank cards confiscated over National Service

Mr Sunak was laughed at as he suggested young people could have their driving licences or bank cards taken away if they refuse to do National Service. The PM was grilled on how he will punish 18-year-olds who fail to take part in his scheme that will see them choose either a year of military service or 25 days on community projects.

As he appeared on a BBC Question Times special, he said: “Well you’ll have a set of sanctions and incentives, and we’ll look at the models that are existing around Europe to get the appropriate mix of those.” Pressed to give examples, he said: “There’s all sorts of things that people do around Europe, whether that’s looking at driving licences, other access to finance, all sorts of other things.”

But host Fiona Bruce interrupted: “Access to finance? So if people don’t want to do National service you take their bank cards away? They can’t get a loan?” The audience began to laugh at this point.

Mr Sunak said: “There’s lots of different models around Europe – this has been done in multiple countries in Europe.”

4. Ed Davey mauled over Horizon scandal

Lib Dem leader Sir Ed faced difficult questions about his role as a minister in the Horizon scandal.

He was asked whether he was “proud” of his conduct as postal affairs minister under the coalition government between 2010 and 2012. Sir Ed has come under fire for failing to do more to help wrongly convicted subpostmasters when he held the brief. He also initially refused to meet victim Alan Bates in 2010.

Sir Ed said he made “two big mistakes during that time”, including failing to meet the campaigner – although he subsequently did agree to meet him – and not seeing through assurances given to him by the Post Office.

He said: “I’m sorry for not seeing through those lies. There were many ministers of all political parties during this 20-year period who didn’t see through those lies.” He said he hoped “people go to prison” over “the biggest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history”.

5. Sunak insists he’s glad he called election

Mr Sunak insisted he believed he had chosen the right moment to call the General Election. He said: “It was the right moment to call the election, for the reasons that I have outlined.” Asked if he was glad to have called the election, he added: “I am.”

The Prime Minister compared his current prospects to those he had during the Tory leadership contest of 2022 – which, of course, he lost. Mr Sunak said: “Even though people didn’t want to hear it at the time, I kept going, I kept saying what I thought was right for this country, I kept going until the end and you know what? I was proved right then.

“And that is why you can trust me now when I say that what Keir Starmer is promising you is the same fantasy as Liz Truss did and it is just going to make your taxes go up and that matters to me because I don’t want that to happen.”

6. Tetchy Sunak confronted over NHS waiting lists

In another difficult back-and-forth, the PM was asked what message he had for millions of people languishing on the NHS waiting list. Reminding the audience that he’s from an “NHS family”, Mr Sunak said: “The NHS matters to me personally and we haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked.“

He said that progress never follows a “straight line”, but said the Government is putting record investment into the NHS. The audience member, named Ronald, when asked if he was satisfied, responded: “No. So your message to the people who are still on the waiting list is ‘sorry, but could do better’.”

Mr Sunak responded: “To give you the context here, look, here’s the thing we’re grappling with. During the pandemic, six million referrals that otherwise would have happened didn’t happen. Just think about that for a second.”

7. ‘Corbyn would’ve been better PM than Johnson’

Mr Starmer said Jeremy Corbyn would have been a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson. The Labour leader ducked a volley of questions over whether he truly believed his predecessor would make a “great” Prime Minister.

Host Fiona Bruce repeatedly challenged him over his one-time statement, with Sir Keir insisting: “It wasn’t a question that really arose because I didn’t think we were going to win the election.”

When Ms Bruce asked for a “yes” or “no” answer to whether he meant it, there was laughter from the audience when he did not give one. Instead he insisted that Mr Corbyn would have made a better PM than Mr Johnson.

8. Swinney admits SNP woes have been ‘turbulent’

Mr Swinney was grilled on the chaos in the SNP that has seen him become the third First Minister of Scotland in 18 months.

“I think the honest answer is that we’ve had a very tough time as a party in the last couple of years,” he admitted. “It has been a turbulent time.”

9. Chants of ‘shame’ as PM told he’s toying with joining Russia and Belarus

The PM faced a hostile crowd as he was quizzed on Rwanda and the possibility of leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). He is under pressure from Tory hardliners to withdraw in order to force the deportation scheme.

One audience member told him: “There’s only two other countries in the world that don’t subscribe to the ECHR – Russia and Belarus.” While this isn’t strictly correct, it does highlight that the UK would become an outlier, especially among its European neighbours.

Mr Sunak responded: “If I’m in a position where I’m forced to choose between those things, I’m going to put our country’s national security first every single time. I make absolutely no apology about that.” This was met by a chorus of audience members shouting “shame”.

10. Davey defends madcap election stunts

The Lib Dem leader defended his election campaign stunts after he was warned that he couldn’t be taken seriously. So far he has gone on a water slide, fallen in a lake while paddleboarding, made sand castles and taken part in a wheelbarrow race.

He responded: “I take your concerns and the concerns of voters very, very seriously. And if you look at our manifesto, we’ve got some very well thought through policies to try to do things like rescue the NHS. But I don’t think politicians should take themselves too seriously.”

11. Audience member tells Sunak Rwanda plan is ‘inhumane’

In another difficult exchange, a woman in the audience branded the Tory Rwanda policy “devoid of strategic thinking” and “inhumane”. She was met with applause as she confronted the floundering Prime Minister.

A frustrated Mr Sunak replied: “Last month 15 other European countries all signed a statement about illegal migration. And you know what they said? All of them agreed. Italy, Netherlands, lots of other countries. All of them agreed that having the ability to remove illegal migrants to a safe third country was an important part of the solution to this problem, because it removes the incentive for them to come in the first place.”

12. Lib Dem leader’s coalition regrets

Challenged by a student over the Lib Dems abandoning their pledge to scrap tuition fees in the coalition government, Sir Ed admitted: “I understand why your generation lost faith in us. It was a difficult government to be in.”

He said the loss of trust in his party after that period was “very scarring” and admitted he was “not proud” of some of the votes he had to take part in.

13. Starmer vows to clear NHS backlog within 5 years

Keir Starmer vowed to clear the NHS backlog within five years if he becomes PM. The Labour leader pledged to put on an extra two million hospital appointments a year funded by taking on tax dodgers.

He criticised Rishi Sunak for failing to deliver on his pledge to bring down NHS waiting lists. The backlog now stands at 7.5million.

“He blames the NHS staff,” Mr Starmer said. “We will never do that because I know how hard you work all of the time.” He pledged that the party would put on the extra appointments at evenings and weekends. “Over the course of the Parliament, we’ll get it down and clear the backlog completely,” he added. “We did it last time we were in power.”

14. SNP boss asked if he’ll carry on with referenda

Mr Swinney, asked whether he was going to carry on with independence referenda “until you get the answer you want”, stressed his belief that Scotland would be better as an independent country.

Pressed on how he would boost the manufacturing sector, Mr Swinney said Brexit was the “source of the problems”, and that rejoining the EU would provide a boost to the country’s manufacturing sector.

15. Labour leader defends tuition fee backtrack

Mr Starmer claimed he was a “common sense politician” when asked why he had not kept a promise to abolish university tuition fees.

Asked why he had backtracked on the pledge, the Labour leader said: “We don’t have the money to do everything we want to do. We do want to change the tuition fees. But I have a choice to make, which was of the available money do I use it for getting rid of the tuition fees… or do I use that money to get our waiting lists down? That is a political decision and I took it.

“I am not going to do the tuition fees abolition, because I want to put that money to get our NHS back on its feet.” He also said he chose Labour’s plan for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies over nationalising energy companies, as the latter would require huge amounts of money to “pay off the shareholders”.

The Labour leader said: “I am a common sense politician. I work through the issues and to me it did not make sense to nationalise energy and not get the bills down, so I decided we would go for getting the bills down.”