Jeremy Corbyn is wasting MPs' time with public's PMQs questions, says Tory MP Michael Fabricant

Michael Fabricant says MPs are being crowded out by the lengthy public questions

The Labour leader has taken a new approach to PMQs (Sky)

Jeremy Corbyn is wasting time meant for MPs by reading out questions from the public at Prime Minister’s Questions, a Conservative MP has said.

Michael Fabricant said the Labour leader was adding “nothing” to the debate with his new technique but was “wittering on at length”.

“A rather odd PMQs,” The Conservative tweeted on Thursday. “This 'Jackie from Abbots Bromley says' technique is very time consuming.

“What about back-bench MPs who can't get in? Corbyn can ask the question without having to name everyone. It adds nothing.

“They can have a voice without valuable back-bench time being wasted by Corbyn wittering on at length with preambles.”

Mr Corbyn has approached Prime Minister’s Questions differently to previous opposition leaders by crowdsourcing questions from the public, who can submit them on Labour’s website.

The Labour leader then reads the questions to David Cameron.

“It won't be me, everywhere, all the time," he told the Huffington Post website before the change was implemented.

“I want Prime Minister’s Question Time to be less theatre, more fact, less theatrical, more understandable.

“I think it’s very exciting for political obsessives, it’s utterly boring for most of the population, who think it’s an utter irrelevance.”

The BBC said over a million people tuned in to watch Mr Corbyn’s first attempt at the approach, a significant increase in normal viewing figures.

A poll for the Hansard Society carried out by YouGov found that most people prefer the new format, with 23 per cent of people saying the session was “too noisy and aggressive” compared to 47 per cent who said the same thing about the old format in December 2013.

In the survey 10 per cent of people said PMQs put them off politics, compared to 33 per cent who answered so in the previous survey before the change.