Andy Burnham has only been prime minister for three months, but he is already in trouble with the Commons Speaker for talking too much. During the first three sessions of Prime Minister’s Questions with Burnham at the despatch box, Sir Lindsay Hoyle has made repeated appeals for brevity. But is he really any more verbose than his predecessors like Sir Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss and Boris Johnson? Armed with a stopwatch for a dive into the archive, I’ve found that the new prime minister does seem to give fuller, longer answers – by some margin.
The weekly session of PMQs is scheduled to start at midday on Wednesdays when the Commons is sitting, and last for 30 minutes. However it routinely runs for 10, 15, even 20 minutes longer. And that has caused problems. Burnham’s PMQs debut shows the challenge of delivering new style of politics “ Can I just say I admire the prime minister?” Sir Lindsay said during Burnham’s first PMQs.
“At least he’s answering detailed questions. My problem is I’m not going to get through the list, and both of us will be in trouble with the backbenches when we don’t make it.” Just last week he complained again: “We really are going to have to try and speed up some of the answers.” Based on an average of his first three times taking PMQs, Burnham has spoken for a total of 22 minutes per session. That’s between three and six minutes more than the average for the other PMs I looked at each over three similar autumn sessions. The number of questions asked each week can differ though, in part because time is running out.
So I looked at the average time spent on each answer, Of those I looked at, Truss was the fastest – averaging just 33 seconds per answer, followed by Johnson on 35 seconds, Sir Keir on 38 seconds and Sunak on 39 seconds. By contrast Burnham was an outlier, taking on average 51 seconds per answer. That means he talks for a third more per question than Sir Keir and Sunak, and up to 50% more than Truss. Obviously the quantity of words is easier to assess than the quality.
Number 10 thinks there is a simple reason why the current PM takes longer than his predecessors. A senior source tells me: “It’s because he actually answers the questions.” A spokesman for the speaker said: “The speaker is always keen to get in as many backbenchers as possible for any question session.” Listen to Matt Chorley weekdays from 14:00 on BBC Radio 5 Live and on the Urgent Questions podcast.
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