BBC’s Question Time filmed in Buxton put MPs behaviour in the spotlight

The long running political debate show was filmed inside The Octagon.

A spokesperson for The Pavilion Gardens said: “It was a great show with fantastic audience participation filmed in our Octagon.

“A couple of our staff members were in the audience.”

Fiona Bruce presented the programme which saw a debate from panel members David TC Davies MP, Bridget Phillipson MP, Carla Denyer and Richard Tice.

The opening question was from Martin Coles-Evans from Hargreaves.

He asked: “The conduct of MPs has reached an all time low. How can our political parties improve the behaviour of their MPs?”

David TC Davies, Welsh secretary for the Conservative party said: “The Conservative party has had a number of members of parliament who have behaved in an unacceptable fashion.

“It’s very important that each political party acknowledges there is a problem because if you don’t do that you can’t even begin to resolve it.

“People need to know the standards of behaviour have to be high, to allow and welcome the scrutiny to accept there are going to be problems and to expect people to leave if they are found guilty of breaking the rules or letting their standards slip.”

Bridget Phillipson MP, shadow education secretary for Labour, said: “As someone who believes the government can be a force for good in people’s lives and a force for good in our country and anything which chips away at that is incredibly serious.”

Carla Denyer, leader of the Green Party, said: “If you behave like that in any work place you’d be out on your ear straight away.”

Audience member Christoper Lovatt then asked: “When will the government accept that the Rwandan policy has failed?”

Fiona explained that the plan to deport refugees to Rwanda has been rejected for the fourth time.

Bridgett said: “It is completely unworkable and a scandalous waste of taxpayers money, nearly half a billion pounds being spent on 300 people.

Richard Tice, leader of Reform UK said: “The whole thing is a ridiculous farce.

“The question is, is it a deterrent?

“And we all know the answer to that, no.

“This policy is a complete distraction and total waste of time.”

He said under international maritime law refugees should be returned to France saying it’s legal, safe and kind.

The conversation turned to climate change with an audience member asking: “With record rainfall in the UK and now floods in Dubai, what do we need to do to combat climate change?”

Carla said: “The news has been full of pretty alarming evidence that climate change is not something that is going to happen in the future but it is here now.

“The best time we could have brought in policies to help this was decades ago so the second best time is right now.”

Explaining from her engineering back that the technology is already there she said: “The barrier is the policies.”

Richard said even if net zero was achieved tomorrow it would take between 200 and 1,000 years for sea levels to return to normal.

He said: “The best thing to do is adapt to the changing climate instead of thinking you can stop it.”

The episode is available to watch on BBC iplayer.