The Speaker of the house of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle caused a stir when he reprimanded two MPs on the Opposition benches during Wednesday’s PMQs.
Labour’s Imran Hussain was told he could not ask a question about Islamophobia during PMQs, meaning Boris Johnson did not need to answer the query.
The Green Party’s Caroline Lucas was also told off for taking too long to read out her question about Russian interference in UK politics. All the while, the Conservatives who were heckling her were mostly ignored by the Speaker.
Hussain was pointing out that Tory MP Mark Spencer had just been appointed Commons leader, despite being under investigation for Islamophobia – a claim he denies.
He then added that the prime minister was “no stranger to derogatory remarks about Muslim women”, referring to Johnson’s 2018 newspaper column describing those who were burqas as “letterboxes” and “bank robbers”.
It was at this point that Hoyle interrupted Hussain and said: “This is not the appropriate place to raising that.”
He did not give Hussain a chance to continue with his question or ask Johnson to respond to Hussain.
Lucas also encountered some backlash when she was trying to ask Johnson a question on Wednesday.
She said: “Yesterday, when I asked the prime minister about Russian meddling in UK elections, he looked very shifty before claiming he was not aware of any.”
Shouting from the Tory benches forced Lucas to pause briefly, before she continued and said Johnson himself once admitted there was “no evidence of successful interference” in UK elections from Russia.
She said: “So can the prime minister tell us what evidence he has seen of unsuccessful interference?
“Has he actually read the Russia reports, where it’s very clear there is credible evidence?
“And given that as his defence secretary said, ‘information is as powerful as any tank’ can he explain why he’s turning a blind eye to allegations of Russian disruption...”
Hoyle then interrupted her, briefly calling for order before saying to Lucas: “I hope you’re coming to the end of the question.”
“Speaker I could be a lot faster if I wasn’t being barracked by the side opposite,” Lucas replied.
Hoyle then said: “I think the challenge is, I do want to get the front benches moving quickly. We want to get speed into it.”
Lucas continued, shouting over the opposition benches: “Why is he [Johnson] playing fast and loose with our national security?”
Johnson did answer this question but simply claimed he had still not seen any evidence of “successful Russian interference” on “any electoral event”.