Moment SNP minister is slapped down by Question Time audience member in debate

A Question Time audience member lashed out at SNP member Shirley-Anne Somerville during the latest episode of the BBC programme. Fiona Bruce presented an hour of debate from St Andrews in Fife, Scotland. On the panel were Shirley-Anne MSP, Anas Sarwar MSP, Andrew Bowie MP, Thomas Kerr, and Lesley Riddoch. During the discussion, the panel faced audience questions on Labour's latest policies and was asked by a member if the NHS in Scotland was "dying before our eyes."

Also, during the debate, a man in the audience spoke about how there is a large number of people in Scotland who "genuinely cannot work" and that they should be given financial help, so that they are fully integrated into society. He then angrily said that he'd met many people who are "not working, who are definitely able to work". He claimed that in many cases, the people who aren't working are actually earning more money.

The audience member, who works in the Scottish Ambulance Service, then exclaimed to Shirley-Anne, "You've been in government all these years? Do you support that? Do you think that's fair?"

She responded, "If we have people who are economically inactive, then yes, we should be encouraging them into work. We should be ensuring that the systems are there. But I think we need to be very, very careful about assuming that people who are on benefits are somehow on easy street."

Shirley-Anne continued, "I won't apologise for being there to support disabled people or their carers. We should be proud as a nation that we have a social security system that will help our people in their time of need. We don't know when any of us will be in that situation ourselves."

In the first few minutes of the episode, Andrew Bowie, Anas Sarwar, and Shirley-Anne engaged in a fiery debate about Labour cutting welfare and increasing defence spending. Anas said that Shirley-Anne has "destroyed the criminal justice system" and said that the government has "lost its way".

Reform UK Thomas Kerr then said, "Look, I think this is why we start to hate politics, because we're already ten minutes in and we're starting to punch each other to bits."

The panel also discussed whether President Donald Trump played a masterstroke over Iran.

Question Time airs on BBC One on Thursdays at 10:40pm.