Row as speaker fails to let Diane Abbott speak in PMQs debate over Tory donor’s comments

The Commons speaker, Lindsay Hoyle, has sparked a fresh row by refusing to allow Diane Abbott to ask a question during a heated session of prime minister’s questions which was dominated by discussion of a Conservative donor’s comments about her.

Abbott had sought to ask a question throughout the 35-minute session, during which MPs debated the comments made about her by Frank Hester, the Conservatives’ biggest donor. The Guardian revealed earlier this week Hester once said Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she “should be shot”, comments the MP has called frightening.

Hoyle provoked groans in the chamber, however, by ending the session without having called on her, even after the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, and Stephen Flynn, the Scottish National party leader in Westminster, both used their questions to raise the controversy.

Diane Abbott has called Frank Hester’s comments ‘frightening’. Photograph: Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA

Hoyle is already under fire over his decision last month to allow the Labour party to amend an SNP motion on Gaza – a decision which triggered anger on the SNP and Tory benches and prompted an unprecedented apology from the speaker himself.

Marsha de Cordova, a Labour MP who challenged the prime minister on Hester’s comments, told the Guardian: “Convention is that everyone who is on the written order paper gets called first, and she wasn’t on the order paper. But sometimes you have to break convention. I would have liked to see her called.”

Stella Creasy, another Labour MP, tweeted during the session: “Right now Diane Abbott is standing to ask a question in Prime ministers questions. As her safety is debated by others. Something very wrong if her voice isn’t heard today …”

Afterwards, a spokesperson for Momentum, the leftwing campaign group, said: “It was a shocking failure from the speaker to pick Diane Abbott for a question at PMQs, despite her repeated attempts.”

As prime minister’s questions finished, Flynn and Starmer approached Abbott, who is currently suspended from the parliamentary Labour party over a letter she wrote to the Observer, and held brief conversations with her.

Abbott and Hoyle have been approached for comment.