BBC Question Time returns tonight with the latest season of the political flagship programme taking place in Oldham.
Following a three month break, Fiona Bruce will return to host with a virtual audience compiled of people from Oldham.
With the coronavirus pandemic, issues with testing in England, the future of furlough and the latest Brexit negotiations, it is likely to be a barnstorming start to the series, but who is on the Question Time panel tonight?
Question Time is back tomorrow night at 10:45pm on @BBCOne.
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) September 16, 2020
Fiona is joined by @nadhimzahawi, @JonAshworth, @SunetraGupta, @FrenchNicci and @JohnDCaudwell.
Our first programme of the series will take questions from a Virtual Audience in Oldham - join the discussion using #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/TfJ7hPSPYl
Nadhim Zahawi
The junior business minister will undoubtedly be probed on future policy surrounding Covid-19 and will be a voice for the government on other policies, including Brexit. While furlough and other Covid topics will undoubtedly be raised to the minister, he could also be questioned on Brexit. The junior minister has voted against guaranteeing EU derived rights, and the potential to acquire residency rights, for EU and EEA citizens legally resident in the UK. He also voted against seeking to protect the residence rights of citizens of the European Union. Last week he made an appearance on Sky News backing the Boris Johnson's ambitious plan that would see 10 million people tested a day. When asked if it was possible he said: “I think it’s important that we are ambitious and I think it’s right that the prime minister wants us to be able to test everyone.”
READ MORE: Question Time host Fiona Bruce tipped to enter top ten of BBC’s top earners
Jon Ashworth
The shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth will represent Labour on the BBC show with the MP expected to represent Labour’s views on the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. The former adviser to Gordon Brown has been exceptionally critical of the government’s testing policy during the pandemic calling it “not just any shambles but now a world-beating shambles”. Yesterday he tweeted: “They promised us a world-beating system but ministerial incompetence is forcing them to restrict testing. When testing breaks down, tracing breaks down and the virus spreads. It’s now urgent ministers fix testing.”
On Brexit, Ashworth has voted for UK membership of the EU and more EU integration as well as the right to remain for EU nationals already living in the UK. He also voted for replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system. Ashworth also made headlines for his part of a leaked phone call to a Conservative that Jeremy Corbyn would not win the election.
Professor Sunetra Gupta
The Infectious disease epidemiologist and professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford University will appear on Question Time this evening. She will bring her level of expertise to the handling of the Covid-19 and was a critic of the lockdown stating that “people are treating [Covid] like an external disaster, like a hurricane or a tsunami, as if you can batten down the hatches and it will be gone eventually. That is simply not correct”.
She has also suggested that some sort of herd immunity may be the way forward in dealing with Covid-19.
A message from Fiona as #bbcqt returns to @BBCOne this Thursday night.
— BBC Question Time (@bbcquestiontime) September 14, 2020
Join our virtual audience from Oldham and put your questions to the panel here: https://t.co/GxfN9mG9ix pic.twitter.com/xsrJZpWQn5
John Caudwell
The Co-founder of Phones 4u will undoubtedly be able to give insight into how businesses have been impacted by the lockdown and the Covid-19 pandemic. The Brexiteer reportedly donated £500,000 to the Conservatives ahead of the General Election. Caudwell, who is worth over £2 billion famously went head-to-head with Labour's shadow chancellor, John McDonnell after he stated that "nobody needs or deserves" to be a billionaire - which Mr Caudwell said was a "divisive message".
Ahead of the General Election in 2019, Caudwell said that nearly every wealthy person, including him, was thinking of leaving the UK if Labour won the election. On Brexit, he said that it was "rubbish" to suggest three million jobs would be lost if Britain left the EU.
READ MORE: BBC Question Time to be held in Edinburgh next month
Nicci Gerrard
The author and journalist behind the bestselling novels written with her husband under the name Nicci French. She won the 2016 Orwell prize for her reporting on the care of dementia patients in the UK and has been campaigning to prevent people in residential homes being separated from their carers during the coronavirus crisis. Writing in The Guardian she wrote: “the transformation of a home into a jail, which has led some relatives to turn to the law to try to break out their loved one, has been done for good motives, and in the name of protection. But such enforced loneliness is cruel and is wrong.”
Question Time is on BBC One at 10.45pm tonight.
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