Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has been ticked off for "fiddling" with his phone rather than listening to Lewisham East MP Heidi Alexander over proposals to scrap NHS bursaries.

Speaker John Bercow also criticised deputy Commons leader Therese Coffey, claiming the pair were "impairing parliamentary decorum" by using their phones on the government front bench during the opening remarks of a Commons debate.

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Heidi Alexander

Mr Bercow later told Ms Coffey to either put her phone away or "get out of the House" as she protested against his ruling.

Shadow health secretary Ms Alexander had questioned why health minister Ben Gummer was replying to a Labour-led debate on the government's attempts to replace bursaries with loans.

She suggested Mr Hunt did not want to defend his policy despite being sat on the front bench.

Mr Bercow, intervening, said: "It is entirely for the government to decide which minister to field.

"But I do very gently say to (Mr Hunt), and indeed to (Ms Coffey), that to sit on the bench while these matters are being debated is one thing - particularly in the case of (Mr Hunt), rather than to participate - but to sit there fiddling ostentatiously with an electronic device defies the established convention of the House that such devices should be used, and I remind members, without impairing parliamentary decorum.

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"They are impairing parliamentary decorum and, in very simple terms, are being rank discourteous to (Ms Alexander) and the House.

"It's a point so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever and sophisticated person could fail to grasp it."

Moments later, Mr Bercow told Ms Coffey: "I say to you, put the device away and if you don't want to put it away, get out of the House.

"It is rude... I'm not inviting a response from you, I'm simply telling you it's discourteous to behave like that - a point that most people would readily understand."