Madeley, 67, left Harper stumped when he read a list of times flights had been grounded due to similar failures after the minister claimed there hadn’t been anything like it in ten years.

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Richard threw his hand into the air and said: “They’re a frequent occurrence.

“July 2019, 50 flights cancelled at various London airports because of radar problems.

“The year before 2018 again delayed flights by 20 minutes for three weeks at Stansted.

“Do you hear the sequence? We’re going back a year at a time.”

Richard then got more frustrated: “Can you not accept that people watching this their hearts will sink when they hear you trying to downgrade the problem and say it’s not that bad?

“Because it’s terrible minister! It’s awful.”

Harper attempted to reply with: “I didn’t I opened my conversation with you by accepting, and I apologised first of all for all of the people who were disrupted yesterday. And I accepted it was a very significant issue…”

But Richard cut in: “And then you immediately said it hadn’t happened in ten years. People don’t care about that, they care it is happening now.”