BBC Question Time audience applaud Wes Streeting's takedown of Rishi Sunak's 'sick note culture'

Wes Streeting received applause from the BBC's Question Time audience as he hit out at Rishi Sunak's comments about a "sick note culture" in Britain.

Last week the PM was accused of distracting from his own failures as he used a speech to warn against "medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life". Figures show 2.8 million people are “economically inactive” due to long-term sickness, which No10 says is “driving an unsustainable increase in welfare spending”.

But appearing on the BBC's Question Time programme Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting hit out at record NHS and mental health waiting lists. He received applause from the audience as he said: "I don't think we have a sick note culture and a lazy workforce. We have a sickness problem and a lazy government.

"I think only this PM sat in No10 looking at NHS waiting lists just south of 8million, looking at mental health waiting lists that see 40,000 children in our country waiting two years for treatment and think what we really need to do is sort out the bit of the system that gives them sick notes rather than sort out the bit of the system that keeps people waiting so long for treatment and care."

He added: "Of course GPs at the moment are having a real problem at the moment with their workloads. Yes I think it is true and I've said so myself in the past I think there are GPs who are dishing out sick notes without being able to see their patients in the way they would want to because they've got an enormous backlog."

Reeling off Labour's commitments on the NHS, he went on: "If we can get people treated and back on their feet we can get them back to work. He [ Rishi Sunak ] hasn't got the first clue what it is like to lie awake at night worrying about whether you can pay your rent, whether you can pay your mortgage, whether your home is going to be repossed... he hasn't got the first clue.

"I think we need a PM and a Government that is in touch and has a record of delivering on the NHS. That change can only come from a general election and that general election cannot come soon enough." When asked if Britain had a "sick note culture with a lazy workforce", the Chair of NHS Confederation Victor Adebowale also received an applause as he replied simply: "No".

One member of the audience also said: "I just think it's quite rich for our billionaire Prime Minister to be making such a comment and not having sympathy for hard working British people and that doesn't offer any sympathy for people that have sickness and disabilities."

Meanwhile the policing minister Chris Philip who also appeared on the panel was mocked after he appeared to confuse the countries of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Responding to an audience member's question during the programme on the Rwanda deportation policy, the MP for Croydon South seemed to ask whether "Rwanda is a different country to Congo".

The comment caused a short outburst of laughter from some members of the debate programme's audience as shadow health secretary Wes Streeting's eyes darted around the room.