Westminster Hall

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

Monday 12 January 2026

[Sir Edward Leigh in the Chair]

Call for General Election

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

16:30

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 727309 relating to a general election.

It is truly a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. Democracy is fundamental to any free and functioning country. Every hon. Member in this House is here for one reason: our constituents put their trust in us through the ballot box. We stood on manifestos, political parties made promises, and voters judged those promises and placed their faith in those they believed would honour them. That is why this petition matters.

More than 1 million people have signed this petition calling for a general election, including 1,124 people in my constituency in the Scottish Borders. It is important to be clear: under our constitutional arrangements, a petition itself cannot trigger a general election. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] That authority rests with the Prime Minister, unless he is overridden by a vote of no confidence. Even so, I hope that the Government will reflect carefully on the scale of this petition. Parliament considers many petitions, but this one is set apart by its size and by the speed with which public support has been mobilised. Each week, as I speak to constituents across the Scottish Borders, most fair-minded people accept that Governments must adapt to world events and unexpected challenges, whether a pandemic or a war. What they will not accept is a party promising one thing before an election and then doing the complete opposite once in power.

[Stuart Anderson (South Shropshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that what Labour promised before the election, to people from farmers to publicans, has been completely betrayed? Almost 2,000 of my constituents in South Shropshire have signed this petition because they believe that the Government have failed and betrayed the British people.

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am going to return to the word “betrayal” later, but there is a real sense that what was promised before the election has simply not been delivered.

During the 2024 general election campaign, Labour promised one thing above all else: change. We have certainly seen change, but it is not for the better. On the morning of Friday 5 July 2024, the new Prime Minister stood on the steps of No. 10 and promised a “Government of service”. He promised to put the country before his party.

[Claire Hazelgrove (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Lab)]

Hear, hear.

[John Lamont]

He promised not to raise taxes—Labour Members are not “Hear, hear!” now, are they?

The Prime Minister promised accountability and transparency. The question that many of us are now asking is: service to whom? To his hard-left Back Benchers? To his trade union paymasters? This Labour Government have now been in power for 18 months, and Britain is suffering as a result. We have a Prime Minister surrounded by advisers who appear to lack both clarity of purpose and a coherent plan for the country.

Let us remind ourselves of some of the broken promises that have fuelled the public anger. Winter fuel payments were cut within weeks of Labour taking office, leaving pensioners feeling the cold last winter. Labour promised in its manifesto not to increase national insurance, yet the jobs tax raised employer national insurance contributions and, combined with the un-Employment Rights Act, has increased the cost of hiring a worker by around £1,000. In total, we have seen £64 billion—£64 billion—in tax rises across the Chancellor’s first two Budgets. Let us hope, for all our sakes, that the Chancellor does not get a chance to deliver another Budget.

Before the election, the Prime Minister told the National Farmers’ Union that

“losing a farm is not like losing any other business—it can’t come back.”

He was right. Yet his Government introduced the family farm tax, a policy that threatens the future of family farms across the country. Although we welcome the partial U-turn announced just before Christmas, that tax should be scrapped entirely. I pay tribute to farmers for their tireless campaigning over the past year, including many in my constituency, such as Peter Douglas from Hawick and Robert Neill from Jedburgh.

Pubs and hospitality businesses are also facing a bleak future under this Labour Government. Rising business rates, higher costs and the jobs tax are battering businesses that are vital to our economy. Pubs such as · the Allanton Inn in Berwickshire or the Black Bull in Lauder are at the heart of our local communities. Hospitality venues are closing, laying off staff and cutting hours as a direct consequence of this Government’s decisions. While the number of pubs remained broadly stable up until 2024, following the Chancellor’s jobs tax announcements, closures accelerated in the first half of 2025 at a rate of two venues per day. By mid-2025, there were 374 fewer pubs than at the start of the year.

Illegal immigration is another clear example of failure. The Prime Minister promised to “smash the gags”. Instead, small boat crossings rose by 13% in Labour’s first full year in office. Last year, more than 41,000 people entered the United Kingdom illegally, with 32,000 now housed in asylum hotels at the taxpayer’s expense. That outcome is hardly surprising when one of the Government’s first acts was to scrap the deterrent to discourage illegal migrants from heading to the UK. We know that deterrents work. The previous Conservative Government reduced Albanian small boat crossings by over 90% through a returns agreement. We now have a Home Secretary who talks tough, but a Government too weak to make the difficult decisions needed to fix the problem.

Labour also promised to take back our streets and recruit more police officers. Instead, there are now 1,316 fewer police in England and Wales than when they took office. Then there is digital identification— something that people did not vote for, did not want and do not need. Innovation has its place, but we should not mandate ID for law-abiding citizens or exclude those who choose not to participate from taking their full rights.

[Stuart Anderson]

I have made clear my views on the authoritarian approach of digital ID. Many constituents in South Shropshire would be excluded because of remote connectivity. Does my hon. Friend see that as a major issue?

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Not only is it something that was not discussed before the election, it is something that there is no public support for. But in rural communities, such as those in the constituencies that both my hon. Friend and I represent, there is a real issue with connectivity and how it will work in practice. People may be deprived of the ability to access vital public services as a consequence, if we believe the things that some Labour MPs are saying that they hope this ID system will achieve.

This Government have been blown off course, with multiple U-turns on income tax, WASPI—Women Against State Pension Inequality Campaign—compensation, welfare reform and the long overdue inquiry into grooming gangs—the list grows longer by the day. This Government are riddled with chaos and scandal, with Ministers resigning over fraud, corruption allegations, tax issues and ethical failures, right up to a Prime Minister who claims excessive freebies. Britain deserves better.

From my emails, surgeries and doorstep conversations, I know that colleagues will recognise the same mood across the country: disappointment, anger and a profound sense of betrayal—the word “betrayal” comes up time and again. Labour Members should reflect carefully on why so many people feel that way. The Government’s response to this petition was to dismiss it, and to dismiss the voices of the more than 1 million people who signed it. Those concerned should not be brushed aside simply because parliamentary mechanisms do not allow this House to act for them directly. This Government are giving the impression that they believe themselves to be above public opinion. The Opposition will not allow that.

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

As my hon. Friend knows, seven of the top 10 constituencies in terms of numbers of people who have signed the petition are in Essex, and they include my own constituency. That is how unpopular Labour is in Essex. Does he think that might have anything to do with why Labour councillors want to cancel the local elections in Essex in May? Or is that just an amazing coincidence?

[John Lamont]

My right hon. Friend makes an excellent point. This time last year, we had a petition on a similar subject, which millions of people signed, and I think Essex was also at the top of the league table for numbers of signatures. I am a member of the Petitions Committee, which is why I am presenting the petition on behalf of the Committee—a few other members of the Committee are here today. We deal with petitions every single week, but very rarely do we see petitions that attract this level of support and public participation, such is the sense of anger and betrayal felt by people out there in the country.

As I was saying, the Conservatives will continue to challenge and force reversals of damaging policies, just as we did on the winter fuel payment, the family farm tax and the grooming gangs inquiry. Labour promised to be different, but instead it has presided over a catalogue of broken promises, scandals and policy announcements that no one supports.

[Douglas McAllister (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab)]

In preparing for this e-petition debate, I clicked on the House of Commons Library service, which invites Members to look at a Government tracker produced by the registered charity and independent fact-checking organisation Full Fact. Did the hon. Member click on that and look at its findings in relation to the 86 pledges from the Labour party manifesto?

[John Lamont]

I have not looked at that particular facility. I am here to represent the 1 million people who signed the petition calling for an election and all the people I speak to each week in my constituency who are fed up with the U-turns, betrayals and chaos that this Government—the party that the hon. Gentleman represents—are presiding over. I make no apology for standing up for those people and putting the case that they have asked me to make on their behalf. The Labour Government may still have the votes, as the hon. Gentleman has demonstrated, but they have lost the country. Britain deserves far better than this Prime Minister and this failing Labour Government.

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

I am sure that my hon. Friend will remember the Prime Minister saying that

“not a penny more on your council tax”

would be implemented by this Labour Government, yet constituents in the Worth valley, across Keighley and Ilkley, have experienced a rise of 14.99% in the past two years under Labour-run Bradford council. Does my hon. Friend feel that that meets the Prime Minister’s promise?

[John Lamont]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of my recollections from the last general election was the then Conservative leader, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), saying in the leaders debate, “Mark my words: if you think Labour is going to win this election, start saving now, because they are going to put up your taxes.” And guess what? He was absolutely right. Tax after tax has gone up, despite the promises that the Labour leader made—I will happily take interventions from Labour Members.

After all the Prime Minister’s promises not to put up taxes, look at us now: £64 billion-worth of tax rises, thanks to the Labour Chancellor, just in the past 18 months. What an absolute embarrassment. No wonder people are fed up with politics. No wonder people do not want to take part in voting any more. They feel utterly betrayed, and you lot are responsible.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

“You lot”? Not me, thank you very much.

I will not impose a time limit, but Members can see that quite a lot of people want to speak, so I am sure they will be considerate to colleagues and will focus on the petition.

16:44

[Patrick Hurley (Southport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward.

The petition presents itself as the voice of democratic urgency. In truth, it is something with which we are far more familiar, and something far less noble: it is nothing more than the collective stamping of feet, accompanied by the online equivalent of the call and response, “What do we want? And when do we want it?” We have all encountered this impulse before—or at least those of us who are parents have. It is an impulse pandered to by the Tory MPs who are present: the impulse of the toddler. But a democracy cannot be run like a nursery. This great country of ours, which they repeatedly let down over 14 years of decline, cannot be governed like one either. However loudly certain voices and views might be expressed, or however much they are featured on GB News or shared on Facebook late at night after half a bottle of wine, the truth is that we do not get something simply because we want it.

[Mr Francois]

Is the hon. Gentleman seriously saying—his attitude is unbelievably patronising—that the more than 1 million people across the UK who signed the petition are basically all children who do not know what they are doing? That is his implication, which is deeply insulting to 1 million-plus people, including our constituents.

[Patrick Hurley]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention.

Back in 1983, when he was the Leader of the Opposition —[Interruption.] Members may remember Michael Foot—the right hon. Gentleman will never be the Leader of the Opposition. Michael Foot thought he was storming to victory back in 1983. “Look at this,” he said to John Golding. “I’ve got a rally here. There’s a thousand people cheering me on.” “But Michael,” John replied, “there were 122,000 outside saying you’re crackers.” A million people have signed the petition, but how many people voted in the general election? Well over a million people.

This Parliament was elected in a general election held under rules that were well known in advance, and those rules include a parliamentary term. Some Members might not like it, but it is true. The rules do not include a rolling plebiscite triggered whenever a sufficiently large group of people becomes bored, frustrated or impatient—or someone has shared a video clip with them on WhatsApp.

[Robbie Moore]

Will the hon. Member acknowledge that, in the history of petitions debates, the two most highly subscribed debates have been on petitions asking for a general election in this Parliament? Does he acknowledge that the fact that both those petitions were signed by more than a million people illustrates huge frustration at the Government and that people want them to change course?

[Patrick Hurley]

I acknowledge that a million people want the Government to change course.

The petitioners who have put their names to the petition say that the people want change, but they are not the majority of people in this country. There are tens and tens of millions of people in this country and only 1 million people signed the petition. Here’s the news: the people actually got change in 2024. Eighteen months ago, we got a Government who explicitly said they would not just go and put sticking plasters on the gaping wounds of the previous 14 years. We got a Government who explicitly said it would take a decade of national renewal. That is what we went to the people with 18 months ago, and that is what they were happy to vote for. We said it would take a decade to fix the country’s problems and the mess the Conservatives left us in.

The people who want change now are the very same people who want to go back to the years of stagnation and decline under the Conservatives—the years of austerity under Eric Pickles, George Osborne and Michael Gove, and, of course, the self-harming referendum that has done this country no favours whatsoever.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman may recall that 17.3 million people voted in that referendum, peacefully and democratically, to leave the European Union. That is a lot more people than voted for Labour at the general election. If he is not prepared to respect the opinion of the million people who signed the petition, and as he is all about numbers today, will he respect the will of the 17.3 million people who voted to leave the EU? Or is that not a big enough number for him either?

[Patrick Hurley]

Those people voted in good faith and they were lied to by people like him—

[Mr Francois]

I beg your pardon? Withdraw!

[Patrick Hurley]

They were lied to inadvertently.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Member must withdraw that comment.

[Patrick Hurley]

I will withdraw it, but does the right hon. Gentleman respect the vote in 1975 on the exact same thing—staying in the European Community, as it was—which was overturned 41 years later? In every Parliament, at every moment, some people want change and others do not. Some want more spending and others do not. Some want radical reform and others want stability. The fact of merely wanting something to happen does not constitute a constitutional imperative. If it did, the Government would be paralysed. We would lurch endlessly from one election to the next, just like we did at the end of the last decade, incapable of governing because the Government were perpetually campaigning. That is evidence not of a democracy that works, but of a democracy that is failing, just like it failed in 2017 and 2019, and just like it failed when the Conservative party was partying while members of the royal family were dying.

An election is not a comfort blanket to be demanded whenever politics becomes difficult or the previous Government’s chickens come home to roost. There is a tendency in debates such as this to treat an election as though it is some kind of harmless release valve. It is not. A general election is disruptive, expensive and all-consuming. It stalls legislation, freezes decision making and turns Parliament in on itself. That is necessary at the right moment, but it is not something to be done after 18 months simply because people have run out of patience.

[Mr Luke Charters (York Outer) (Lab)]

I am genuinely quite baffled that so many Conservative and Reform MPs are here, given that they have missed important debates in this House on things like employment rights. To be fair to the Conservatives, they went to the debates on VE Day and VJ Day; there were no Reform MPs at those debates. What does my hon. Friend make of that?

[Patrick Hurley]

It looks like Reform MPs turn out only when there is something in it for them.

We should be honest about what the petition represents. It is not a considered proposal for the better governance of this country. We can tell that by the way Opposition Members are giggling behind their hands on the other side of the room. The petition is not accompanied by a constitutional argument for changing this place to make it better, nor by any sort of legislative necessity. It is simply an expression of dissatisfaction at how long it has taken the new Government to fix the problems that were left behind after 14 years of chaos, division and decline caused by the Conservative party. There were years of economic stagnation, a referendum of such consequential proportions that the economy has barely grown since 2016, and a Tory Government who were more concerned with looking after themselves than with looking after the most vulnerable in this country.

[Mr Francois]

At least we buy our own glasses.

[Patrick Hurley]

It doesn’t look like it.

If adults behaved in their working lives the way the petition urges Parliament to behave—abandoning responsibility at the first sight of trouble, and demanding resets whenever outcomes failed to please them—we would call it irresponsible and childish. We would not reward it. Democracy requires more than just knee-jerk, reflexive wanting. To indulge every demand for an immediate election is not to respect the voters, but to infantilise them. The House should do better than that.

16:53

[Olly Glover (Didcot and Wantage) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for his eloquent introduction of this important topic. Over a million people have signed the petition, and 4,929 of them are constituents of mine in Didcot and Wantage in Oxfordshire. I want to start by summarising some of the reasons they gave for asking for a general election and, indeed, this debate when they wrote to me.

Some people feel that the Government’s impact on small businesses and economic growth is too much to bear—for example, a small business owner who is considering having to close his business as a consequence. For other people, it is more about international matters, including concerns about the Government’s approach to the Gaza situation. Others felt that working-class people have been disregarded and betrayed by the Government, given what was promised before the general election. For other people, there was an overriding feeling of dissatisfaction and general incompetence. Some people, particularly those who send their children with special educational needs to private institutions, were concerned about the impact of VAT on school fees.

Although I am no fan of the Government and agree with some of those criticisms, I am afraid I must politely disagree with my constituents, because I do not think we should have a general election, for three reasons. First, there are no straightforward criteria for assessing when it is time for a Government’s time in office to end early, because under our first-past-the-post system a Government almost never earns more than 50% of support in the first place. We could end up with an endless revolving door of elections and brand-new Government chaos. The period in the late 2010s, when we saw frequent general elections, did not lead to a general increase in satisfaction with the political system, or to a feeling that the economic or general outcomes for the country had improved.

To be fair, Governments deserve time to learn the ropes and get things right, albeit this Government have not necessarily used their time so far very well. But we must hear and understand the underlying reasons that have led to the petition and the call for a general election. There are lots of things that we need to change about our politics, which we need to make relevant and responsive again. Notwithstanding the very good opening remarks by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, I am afraid the exchange we heard during the previous speech perhaps shows what is wrong with our politics at the moment and why it puts people off: relitigating the arguments of 10 or 15 years ago, with a lot of “he said”, “she said” or “they said” between representatives of the two main parties, which between them have been running our country for the overwhelming majority of the last 100 years or more.

Instead, I offer some better ways to address the discontent and boost engagement with politics. At the risk of sounding naive and full of optimism about the future—my Liberal Democrat colleagues know I never do that, as I am yet to understand the philosophical or intellectual basis of optimism, but I will put that to one side—what we really need in our politics is more listening to each other and more sharing of political ideas, not just as parties but as 650 people who all have different backgrounds, and who bring those different backgrounds and life experiences to this place. We need to do that to achieve better representation for our constituents, because none of us individually can hope to represent directly, or have the lived experience of, all of our tens of thousands of constituents. That would be impossible. We can only listen to them, learn from them and reflect on that.

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive comments about the need to change the political culture inside this place, but there is also a need to change it right across the country, including in our councils and devolved Governments. Does he agree that working to roll out proportional representation across all our electoral systems would change the culture both in the country and in this place?

[Olly Glover]

I am going to have to launch a cyber-security inquiry, because the hon. Gentleman has clearly hacked my notes. [Laughter.] I entirely agree with him and pay tribute to him, because he is a consistent and passionate advocate for proportional representation, as am I. That is something on which we can agree.

Actually, some people said they signed the petition because they would like to see proportional representation, because they feel the current Government do not represent the views of the country. Of course, many people meant that critically, but it also reflects the simple numerical fact that we have a voting system that gave a majority to a party that won 33.7% of the vote on the lowest turnout in 24 years. It would of course be unrealistic to even hope that such a Government could represent the views of the country, because they are so far below representing what at least 50% of people think.

Absent our changing the culture of this place so that we have more listening and sharing of ideas, I agree with the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) that we need proportional representation to create a structure to enable that. We could have a long debate about what forms proportional representation could take, but I think people would find that even more dull than anything else. However, proportional representation would enshrine the idea of more than one party having to co-operate, compromise, listen and engage in order to form a broad-based and more representative Government.

I also feel that we need to get back to the idea of fixed-term Parliaments. It was perhaps a matter of regret or irony that the time when we did have fixed-term Parliaments was one of some of the greatest political turmoil that this country has had, but that does not mean that the idea is not sound. It is not right that a Prime Minister of whatever party affiliation should be able to treat the country like a political casino, choosing on a whim when to have a general election. That does not help serious policy or long-term thinking over those four or five years. Instead, a fixed-term Parliament would give everybody clarity on how long a Government are in—absent some particularly drastic circumstances, obviously. It would be good for the economy, good for the markets and good for that Government themselves. It would certainly be good for the civil servants and people who have to enact the instructions of that Government.

We also need reform to political finances. Thankfully, we are a long way from the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in every special election in the United States, but it is still important that large financial interests are not able to have a disproportionate influence on our politics—or at least not without proper transparency and declarations. More is therefore needed to strengthen the role of the Electoral Commission.

We also need a media landscape that is fuelled by facts and respectful discussion of views, rather than misinformation and the screaming that happens between people of different views on social media. That is also important, and comes through creating better politics.

While I agree with a lot of the criticisms of the Government that have led to my constituents signing this petition, instead of a general election now, I hope that the Government will reflect—and I hope to hear from the Minister on this—on what else we can do to restore or build up people’s faith in politics, and have a much more broad-based political system. Who knows? Maybe, this afternoon, the Minister will have a damascene conversion to proportional representation. I look forward to finding out.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I thank you for a cerebral speech, which will probably do you no good at all.

17:02

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I am very much an advocate of these e-petition debates, because they enable our constituents to set the agenda here in Westminster Hall. I thank the Petitions Committee for its hard work, as always. E-petition debates are an excellent example of our democracy in action, and their importance should never be underestimated.

Wherever possible, I have taken the chance to speak in each petition debate where Cannock Chase has been a top signatory, to make sure that I am present in discussions that my constituents so clearly want me to be a part of. That has included debates on animal slaughter, immigration and paternity pay—all topics more than deserving of time in this House. However, the reality of what we are here to debate this afternoon is that calling for a general election in this way is simply not how our democracy works.

The people who signed this petition who feel that they are unhappy with the Government, or feel that things have not changed in the way they hoped—or perhaps as quickly as they expected—have every right to voice those frustrations. As an MP who lives in their constituency, who holds weekly surgeries and who goes out knocking on doors, I am not naive about the reasons why this petition has gathered more than a million signatures. I hear week in, week out about the difficulties and challenges that my constituents face.

One of the criticisms that is levelled at politicians is that we are incapable of thinking in the long term, that we are bound by four or five-year terms—perhaps even less if this petition got its way—and that there is therefore not enough time to focus on tackling the systemic issues that lead to the things that many of our constituents want us to address. We only need to look across the Atlantic to see what having elections every two years does to political culture and the ability of leaders to get things done.

So many Government Members talk about the last 14 years, not only because of the decline that we and a great majority of the public feel that Britain suffered during that time, but because of the short-term thinking during those four terms, which led to mammoth challenges such as a crisis in the public finances, crumbling infrastructure, prisons at bursting point, the NHS on its knees, net immigration of more than 1 million a year, small boats crossing the channel, asylum hotels—the list goes on. This Government are doing the unusual thing of rejecting the sticking-plaster politics of the short-term sugar rush, and instead going about the difficult job of fixing the big issues that Britain faces, some of which have been decades in the making.

[Steve Yemm (Mansfield) (Lab)]

Might my hon. Friend agree that the very idea of calling a general election would undermine the whole principle of representative democracy, particularly in communities like mine and his that voted for long-term political change rather than a short-term set of solutions and political churn?

[Josh Newbury]

Absolutely. I could not agree more. Knocking on doors during the general election campaign I was struck by my constituents who, contrary to what we might think when we see opinion polls that, particularly these days, waver quite dramatically, really wanted us to knuckle down and focus on tackling in a four or five-year term the long-term issues that we know are there in our country and need to be tackled.

When I was preparing for this debate I wondered where Prime Ministers of yesteryear were after 18 months into their tenure, so I had a look. Margaret Thatcher, who I will never praise but who it is fair to say did make decisions with a belief in doing the right thing rather than the popular thing, was 13% behind in the polls in December 1980. John Major was 22% behind. Tony Blair was 28% ahead, happily undermining my point, but Gordon Brown was 7% behind and David Cameron a few per cent behind. The right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak) was 23% behind, and just a month later decided to call a general election. Few Governments enjoy widespread support 18 months into their time in office, but few have addressed as rapidly an inheritance like the one this Government were left just 18 months ago. I do not know about other hon. Members, but I quite enjoy a bit of positivity. Blue Monday is just around the corner, but anyone listening to some of the contributions in this debate might be mistaken in thinking that it is today.

The reality is that after a year of Labour, our NHS has received a £29 billion boost in funding. That translated into more than 5 million additional appointments, which, contrary to the talk of broken promises, was more than double what we promised in our manifesto. We secured a £400 million investment to boost clinical trials, improving NHS services and driving growth, and we brought 1,000 GPs into the workforce. I worked in a supporting role in general practice before I came into this place, and I know the difference that that investment is already making. One thousand practices are being modernised, including Chadsmoor medical practice, Rawnsley surgery and Red Lion surgery in my constituency. In the Budget, the Chancellor also froze prescription charges, and we are opening 250 new neighbourhood health centres so that our constituents can get treated closer to home.

Perhaps more than anything else, the NHS is a prime example of the cost of short termism and the lack of investment in our public services that we saw under the previous Government, and the progress that this Government are making in short order. NHS satisfaction figures, much like opinion polls, reflect the fact that we have a long way to go, but we have made rapid progress towards rebuilding.

In my part of the world and in many other coalfield communities, our retired mineworkers who powered this country and did one of the most dangerous jobs anyone can do were ignored for 14 years. But within 18 months of this Labour Government, members of both the mineworkers’ pension scheme and the British Coal staff superannuation scheme won the pension justice that they had fought so long for. With the transfer of £2.3 billion to members of the BCSSS and £1.5 billion to the MPS, another historic injustice so dismissively overlooked under the previous Government has been righted under this Government.

On transport, for the first time since the 1990s we have frozen rail fares, which will help millions of our constituents save money. Last year, the Government confirmed backing for the improved M54-M6 link road, which will directly benefit commuters in Cannock Chase. The Bus Services Act 2025 will give transport authorities the ability to seize the opportunities of franchising and council-owned bus companies. On education, a quarter of children in my constituency are on free school meals—significantly above the national average—so I am proud that we are rolling out free breakfast clubs across the country, making sure children go to school nourished and ready to learn.

The Government also announced funding for 300 new nurseries, including Heath Hayes primary academy in my constituency, which opened the doors of its new nursery back in September. Recently, we scrapped the two-child benefit cap. Although Opposition Members might disagree with lifting thousands of children in my towns and villages, and 550,000 children across the country, out of poverty, I think it solves another stain on our country and is an investment in the future long-term success of our country.

We have announced homes for heroes, which will ensure that our veterans, as well as domestic abuse survivors and care leavers, get a roof over their heads—something that we have acted quickly on when nothing of the sort was done under the previous Government in 14 years, let alone 18 months. Hon. Members will be pleased to learn that I do not plan to list all of this Government’s achievements—time is far too short for that—but I am sure many of my colleagues will be able to expand. Looking into this year, by March we will have more police on our streets, and by April more health hubs and an average of £150 off energy bills, with much more to come.

Positive change takes time. We know that from many decades of history in this House and in town halls up and down this country. Labour was elected with a resounding victory, a large majority and a mandate to make decisions that turn this country around. Anybody looking at our manifesto can see a vision of what Britain will look like by the time we get to the next general election. That is how our political system works. That is how British Governments have always been judged; they get four or five years and then the public have their say. That is true of our activities as individual MPs—the only people who can speak up for the communities that we represent in this place. In my first 18 months, I am proud to have spoken more than 110 times on a huge range of topics. That is more than seven times what my predecessor managed in her final 18 months representing the people of Cannock Chase. I have held surgeries in villages that have never had an MP offer face-to-face appointments, and I hope to be able to continue that for many years to come.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

I remind colleagues that this is a debate about a general election, so we want to keep it focused on that.

17:10

[Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

Thank you, Sir Edward, for allowing me to speak on behalf of the 1,892 people in my constituency who have signed this petition. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for expounding why this is an important debate. I am in my fifth Parliament now, and I do not recall the Petitions Committee having to call as many debates on calling another general election in any other Parliament. This debate follows last January’s, when 3 million people had signed the petition. Why are we seeing this appetite among our constituents to re-litigate the general election of 2024 so soon after it happened?

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

I believe I just heard the hon. Member say that there had been a petition with 3 million signatures last year and one with 1 million signatures this year. If that is correct, does that mean that the number of people calling for an election has fallen by two thirds?

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

That is probably 4 million people who have, in that length of time, signed the petition. I encourage the hon. Member to dream on.

Why have we seen the robust signing of these petitions over the past two years? It boils down to the fundamental principle of our democracy, which is based around peoples’ manifestoes. We need to rely on political parties to set out a direction of travel in their manifesto and then to try to deliver it. The problem that has led to all these signatures is to do with not having been told in the manifesto about the Government’s plans for change.

I could go on for the whole of this debate about the tax changes alone because we were told in the general election that if they were to win, the Government had no plans to raise taxes beyond what was outlined in their manifesto. Within months, in the first Budget the Chancellor raised taxes by an astonishing £40 billion a year for the duration of this Parliament and public spending by a further £30 billion. In total, that is a £70 billion a year increase in public spending—something that was deliberately not stated during the general election campaign.

[Luke Murphy (Basingstoke) (Lab)]

On people not being told about things at a general election, I wonder how many people were told in the 2019 election that the Prime Minister—then Boris Johnson—would be replaced by Liz Truss and then the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak)? Is it not the point that things change over the course of a Parliament, and surely the change of a Prime Minister would be more merit for the calling of an election than the things that the hon. Member has cited?

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Member needs to be careful about what he says on that front, frankly. On taxes specifically, I do not think he can point to a single time in history where, in three months, there has been such a dramatic change from what was promised to the public in a general election campaign and what actually happened in the Budget.

I am going to focus on the non-tax matters. We have lots of votes on taxes over the next few days; I am going to raise some of the other things that this Government have chosen to do in their first 18 months that were decisively not in the manifesto. Giving away the Chagos islands and paying Mauritius to take them was a particularly egregious example of something not set out in the Labour manifesto. On multiple occasions, incredibly important local elections are being cancelled; that was certainly not in the Labour manifesto. A feature of this Government will be the proposed curtailing of jury trials—I notice silence now on the Government Benches, but that, again, was not in the Labour manifesto. I suppose one could grudgingly accept that purging political opponents from the other place was somewhat in the manifesto, but I do not think that stuffing it with political supporters to replace them was. I do not think cutting press access was in the Labour manifesto, I do not think introducing digital ID was in the Labour manifesto and I do not think rolling out an extensive increase in facial recognition on our streets was in the Labour manifesto.

If all those things were happening in another country, one might think they were the route to totalitarianism. These are the kind of things the public are very concerned about: it is not just the huge increase in taxes but the reduction in the freedoms we have taken for granted in this country for years that is causing so many of my constituents to call for another general election.

17:17

[Alistair Strathern (Hitchin) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. It is now just over two years since I was first elected to represent the community I live in. There is really no greater privilege than getting to be here and stand up for our constituents’ concerns, particularly at a time when the stakes feel so high. In that spirit, I want to start by thanking everyone who engaged with the petition and brought the debate to the House of Commons today.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) pointed out, petitions are an incredibly valuable way of ensuring that the public can continue setting the agenda in this place. Although I am sure I might disagree with some of the signatories on a great many things about politics and policy, fundamentally we probably share a concern that, for a long time and under successive parties, people have begun to worry that politicians have not always done a good enough job of serving them and their priorities, and have not shown themselves to be sufficiently capable of delivering the change they are looking to see. Not a single Member in this House should feel comfortable with the trend we have been seeing, over decades, in public attitudes to politicians as a force for good and disillusionment with politics generally.

The general election of over 18 months ago was not the first general election campaign I took part in. It was not even the first election in which I stood to be an MP, given that I had the opportunity a little bit earlier thanks to Nadine Dorries standing down during the previous Parliament. It was probably the one where the stakes felt highest and where the urgency of people’s concerns about the challenges they were facing across our communities and their growing disillusionment about politicians’ ability to affect them felt most acute. I spoke to constituents whose health had deteriorated far too poorly because of a long wait to see the NHS; to families who were fighting to access affordable childcare or the right support for their child at school under a broken settlement, both at early years and in education; and to people whose lives had been narrowed far too much by cost of living and growing interest rate pressures. Those pressures were not down to any failings of their own; it was not about a lack of hard work on their part, but about successive failures of the previous Government to drive down the cost of things that really impacted their lives.

It got to the point where, even on the very basics—whether that was secure borders or the ability to keep the roads in a fit state—my constituents were losing faith in the ability of politics to deliver on the things that touched their lives. None of us should be comfortable with that and, as the party now in government, we must feel the responsibility of putting it right particularly acutely. It is right that, at moments such as this, both the public and Opposition parties represented in the Chamber today have the chance to hold us to account for how we have dealt with the many challenges we inherited.

There is no getting away from the scale of some of the challenges that we have had to grapple with. The NHS, which was already on its knees, was looking at cutting appointments further just at the time they needed to be put back up, as was revealed to the Health Secretary just weeks into office. Our prisons were about to spill over; that fact was known to the previous Government but not revealed to the public at the last general election, if we are talking about transparency going into elections. The public finances were in an even tighter space than had been shared previously, as validated by the feedback from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

Those are all incredibly difficult circumstances to inherit. They make me very angry, and it makes the public understandably frustrated to hear about them, and I hear that frustration. I do not want to spend my time talking about challenges; I want to spend my time talking about solutions. If we are serious about putting right so many of the failings we inherited as a Government, we have to start by being frank with the public about the mess we inherited, and face up to the big and difficult choices needed to put right many of the challenges that the previous Government ducked for far too long—right up to calling the general election. Only the last Prime Minister will know why he chose to go the country early, but I do not think that anyone in this room can credibly claim that it was because he believed that things were only going to get better in his remaining time in office. That is a damning indictment of the trajectory of the country that we inherited.

Faced with all of that, we have had to start doing things that go beyond what we originally intended in our last manifesto. That is not an easy thing to have to do as a politician, but it is the right and brave thing to do when the circumstances dictate big and difficult choices to step up and meet the needs of those moments. We could not shy away from the fact that, if we were not going to find ways to invest billions more into the NHS, a situation that was already too difficult for too many of my constituents was only going to get worse.

We needed to invest in the things that were starting to show people right across my constituency that the state was not working, whether that meant putting more money into special educational needs and disabilities provision, investing to fix crumbling schools or offering a record settlement for repairing roads. We have started to fix, thread by thread, the fabric of the broken Britain that we inherited. Hopefully, between now and the next general election, we can start to demonstrate to people that politics can be a force for good yet again.

I am incredibly proud of many individual things that we have delivered over the last year. We invested in my local hospital to create new and expanded GP surgery places, meaning that we can deliver more appointments and deliver some of the fastest falls in waiting lists across the country. In my area, I know that we are making a real difference to the people who have already been seen. We are investing in extra nursery provision and free breakfast provision, and making sure that we invest in the expanded SEND places that my community needs. Families’ lives have already been touched for the better by the changes that this Government have introduced, from the record investment that we are putting into fixing some of our broken roads, to the greater devolved transport powers over buses that we have given to Hertfordshire county council. Too many constituents have had issues with transport, public transport and driving for too long now. We are starting to invest in things that will show them over time that politics can be a force for good for their priorities again.

I do not want to pretend for one second that any of those choices or individual changes have touched the lives of everyone in my constituency yet. They will not have completely delivered the scale of change that we need to show by the next general election, but they are down payments on the promise we made at the last election and on the causes that I, on behalf of my constituents, will continue to campaign on every day that I am lucky enough to serve in this place.

I do not know when the next general election might be, but I am pretty confident that it is unlikely to be this year. Although I cannot promise that I agree with the petitioners on that urgent ask, I can promise them that, along with all my colleagues, I will work to tackle not only those individual issues but the wider cause of disillusionment that caused them to sign this petition every day that I am lucky enough to serve here.

I will not get everything right, and I am sure that I alone will make plenty more mistakes, however many years I have left in this place, but I will always look to deliver on the intent of restoring faith in politics and the public services that my constituents rely on, and show them that this Labour Government will deliver the change that they voted for and take decisions every day that will make a tangible difference to their lives over the years to come. Together, we can start to turn the tide on the managed decline and broken political settlement that we have tolerated for far too long in this country.

17:24

[Lee Anderson (Ashfield) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to serve once again under your chairship, Sir Edward. Let us be honest: if this petition was likely to trigger a general election, I doubt very much whether some of my former colleagues would be in the room today, because many of them would lose their seats—[Interruption.] We all make mistakes, and when we do we should hold our hands up and say sorry.

Wherever I go in this country, and I travel a lot round this country every week, people say to me that they are sorry—sorry for voting Labour at the last general election—and that they will never vote Labour again. They wish they could turn the clock back and vote for a different party, normally Reform UK.

[Dr Arthur]

The hon. Gentleman talks about being sorry. Many people across the country voted Reform in local council elections on the basis that there would be either no increase in or perhaps even a cut in council tax. Now they face with rises at the very limit of what is legally possible. Is he sorry for that?

[Lee Anderson]

I will just correct the hon. Gentleman slightly. Nowhere in our national literature did anybody promise to cut council tax anywhere in the country. He may want to correct himself on that.

Anyway, I get people apologising for voting Labour. Sometimes the odd lunatic might say they are going to vote for the Green party—they are usually recaptured very quickly. But there is a glimmer of hope, because at the next general election, this lot over here, on the Labour Benches, will all be looking for jobs. Of course most of them are absolutely unemployable now, unless they fancy a job as a bailiff, because, let’s face it, all they have done over the past 18 months is go into people’s houses and take stuff off them—usually money from people’s pockets. It is absolutely disgraceful. They can shake their heads or grin if they want, but they will not be forgiven—mark my words.

Just imagine when Labour Members are down at the jobcentre in a couple of years’ time for their next job interview. The adviser says, “What have you been doing for the past couple of years?” Well, I can sum up their achievements already. For the past few years, they worked for an awful dictator. Under his leadership, illegal migration is totally out of control. Our streets are filling up with criminals; in Birmingham, they are filling up with rubbish as well—there are rats the size of small dogs roaming around Birmingham, feasting on tons of rubbish. They have closed pubs and restaurants. They have put 100,000 people in the hospitality industry on the dole.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s points about the hospitality industry and how difficult that is right now, but I come back to his party’s commitment at last May’s elections. I have a leaflet from the May elections, with his party leader on it, which says the party would

“Reduce waste and cut your taxes”.

I will be the first person to admit that governing is more difficult than it looks from the outside, but does he agree that that set unreasonable expectations among the electorate in those May elections?

[Lee Anderson]

Nowhere on the leaflet did it say we were going cut council tax, so the hon. Gentleman should maybe read it again.

This Government have stolen money off the workers by not increasing the income tax thresholds—something they promised to do—and they have given that money to the shirkers. By shirkers, I mean that these are able-bodied people—the bone-idle, basically. They refuse to go to work. In fact, they stay at home all day and sponge off the state—[Interruption.] Labour Members are shaking their heads. In fact, the only work some of these shirkers do is go out once every five years and deliver leaflets for this lot—great work if you can get it.

Our farmers have been attacked, our pensioners have been robbed and we have been locking people up for social media posts. And let’s not forget puberty blockers—these are medical trials on children. Everyone on the Government Benches who supports that should hang their heads in shame.

The Government are ending the automatic right to trial by jury—shameful. They allow Islamist thugs to dictate police policy on the streets of Birmingham. They have turned a blind eye to Islamists threatening to kills Jews on the streets of London. They voted against having a national inquiry into the mass rape of young girls in Labour-controlled areas—absolutely shameful. Each one of them should be absolutely ashamed.

[Patrick Hurley]

If the hon. Gentleman is genuinely concerned about the rights of the children of this country, will he support cracking down hard on Elon Musk and X?

[Lee Anderson]

I think X has to clean its act up—that is simple, and I think we all agree with that. It is interesting that all these Labour MPs complain about X, yet they are all on X every day making silly comments—you could not make it up, Sir Edward. If they had any scruples or backbone they would all come off X, but I suspect that not one of them will; they will carry on.

[Dr Arthur]

How much money did the hon. Gentleman make from X last year?

[Lee Anderson]

I am not quite sure. I make about 400 quid a month from being on X. That is not exactly the “gotcha” answer the hon. Gentleman expected to that question, but I make no bones about it: I make money from X, and I pay about 45% tax on the money I make, which goes to the Treasury.

Let us not forget another flagship scheme of the Labour party: building brand-new social housing for illegal migrants who come over the channel. Meanwhile, we have a million Brits stuck on the council house waiting list. Yet anybody who calls that out—anybody who disagrees with that lot over there on the Labour Benches—is labelled a far-right racist.

It would be fair to say that every family in this country has been affected by this Labour Government, but not in a good way. We have all had enough of it. We are fed up to the back teeth of them. Let us discuss the Cabinet, starting with the Prime Minister, whose first instinct is to prioritise foreign judges over British people. We have an Attorney General who agrees with the European Court of Human Rights when it blocks foreign rapists and murderers from being deported. We have a Chancellor who does not understand the first thing about economic growth. We have an Energy Secretary who is killing our manufacturing sector with his net zero madness. We have an Education Secretary who says nothing about the radicalisation of our children by left-wing teachers.

We have a Justice Secretary who once said that Brexiteers were worse than Nazis. Mind you, Sir Edward, that is not the daftest thing he has said; just go on YouTube and have a look at his contributions on “Mastermind”—hilarious. We have a Foreign Secretary who is giving away British sovereign territory and making us pay billions of pounds for the privilege. We have a Health Secretary who is ploughing ahead with giving children life-destroying hormone blockers. Worst of all, as a result of this Government we have radical Islamists, former Labour voters—and some politicians—waiting in the wings ready to stand for Parliament at the next election in once-safe Labour seats. Most of the Labour MPs in this Chamber are going to go—they will be on the dole.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

For a calming speech, I call Peter Prinsley.

17:32

[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward. It is lovely to see so many hon. Members on the Opposition Benches—that is unusual in a Westminster Hall debate.

I am a new politician, but I like elections. I like them very much, especially if I can talk about the health service. I like talking about hospitals, about our plans for our hospitals, about getting the waiting lists down and about our plans for neighbourhood health centres and for revolutionising the IT. I also talk up research. However, I do not think that now is the right time for a general election because, as the Health Secretary is fond of saying, although much has been done, there is much still to do. I am sure that we will see great changes as we bring the public with us and renew the NHS, as is our sacred duty.

I am an optimist, unlike the hon. Member for Didcot and Wantage (Olly Glover). Some will say that we are U-turners, but I say that we are a Government who listen—we listen. We listen to my constituent, Roxane Marjoram of The One Bull, Bury St Edmunds, who met the Chancellor of the Exchequer and then wrote her a personal letter about the difficulties of the rates revaluation for pubs. I understand that we will see some reversal of that revaluation. Just a few minutes ago, in the Lobby, I met farmers from Suffolk who told me they were so happy with what the Prime Minister had said about increasing the threshold for the inheritance tax. This is a Government who listen.

Some Opposition Members have been critical of the Prime Minister. They say that he perhaps lacks vision. I am not sure quite what they mean by that. I say that he is the right man at the right time. Mr Boris Johnson—hon. Members may remember him—was previously described as a man with the wrong set of talents for his particular crisis. Our Prime Minister is, I believe, exactly the opposite.

The situation of the world at the moment is as hazardous as any of us can recall. I met a man in a dinner jacket at a black tie dinner just a few weeks ago who told me that he is the chairman of a local Conservative association and that, given the way the world is at the moment, he believes that the Prime Minister is doing a brilliant job. I also believe that to be the case, so let us not have a general election right now. The hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches know very well that we must not have a general election.

17:35

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for opening this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee. Well over a million people signed this petition, a good proportion of them from my constituency of Keighley and Ilkley. They want me to speak on their behalf, and to reiterate that this debate is fundamentally about trust—why? Because trust matters in the relationship between constituents and their MPs—and not only MPs, but the Government of the day.

Let me take us back to the last general election, when many Labour Members were knocking on doors in my constituency promising change. They promised that, if they were lucky enough to get into Government, they would not increase taxes on hard-working people, would not raise council tax by a penny, would return to a politics of service and would ultimately deliver a strategy aligned to their manifesto.

What have we seen? We have seen rising taxes on working people. Council tax has been raised by 14.99% in my constituency alone in the last two years under Labour-run Bradford council, so that tax is increasing on hard-working people. We have seen betrayals and U-turns, and I will go into a few of them because ultimately that is why so many people—more than a million—have signed this petition. It illustrates the level of frustration out there among the wider population. This is the second petition on this issue that the Petitions Committee has considered.

Let us start with the betrayals. Our farmers and family businesses have been impacted by choices this Labour Government have made. Those choices and changes were not indicated before the general election, such as inheritance tax challenges with agricultural property relief and business property relief. We have seen 14 months of huge amounts of anxiety and frustration among our farming community and family businesses, which will now be exposed to an IHT liability of 20%, over and above a rise in the threshold to £2.5 million. That rise only took place at the 11th hour, three days before Christmas, after 14 months of many of those farmers and family businesses raising their concerns.

We saw Labour MP after Labour MP go through the voting Lobbies, backing the ambitions of the Prime Minister and Chancellor to increase tax on many of our hard-working farmers. Only one Labour MP had the courage and the backbone to stand up on behalf of his constituents and tell the Chancellor that he did not agree with the proposals she and the Prime Minister had made.

All those family businesses, whether in hospitality, brewing, manufacturing or engineering, are being impacted by the IHT changes. I was with the owners of a business that makes furniture in my constituency, who had worked out that their business property relief liability was already about £800,000. They employ 250 people in Keighley, and will be directly impacted by this Labour Government, who—dare I say—said that they would not do this and did not include it in their manifesto. That is a betrayal that this Labour Government has rolled out.

[Mr Charters]

The hon. Member uses the term “betrayal”. I know he has been a steadfast voice for the defence of the Ukrainian people, so does he agree that the biggest betrayal this country has seen from a politician has been Nathan Gill, the former leader of Reform in Wales, taking money from a foreign power?

[Robbie Moore]

I have to confess that I am not aligned with the detail of that case, but what I do know is that the hon. Gentleman, who represents York Outer—a very rural constituency—and I believe sits on one of the key all-party parliamentary groups for food security, was one of those Labour MPs who voted against the inheritance tax changes that the Conservatives advocated. I am sure the hard-working farmers and family businesses in his constituency will feel a huge amount of frustration that he did not stand with them.

Then there is our pub industry. The huge rises in business rates and employer national insurance contributions are hitting many of those hard-working businesses within the hospitality sector and the pub industry. No wonder it is very difficult for a Labour MP to get a pint in a pub, many of which they have been quite rightly asked not to return to. Of course, the rise in employer national insurance contributions is hitting all businesses. I have had many conversations with our hard-working teachers and headteachers, who regularly tell me about the tough choices they face about making teaching assistants redundant because of the rise in employer national insurance contributions. The grant that comes out of central Government to cover the rise covers only about 70% of the increase in costs, so the additional 30% must be covered by the existing school budget.

There are also the free school meals and breakfast clubs—but who is paying for them? The schools are, out of their existing budgets. Labour MPs want to roll out the narrative that our constituents are going to receive all these benefits, and of course we want to see those benefits happen, but they must get to grips with the facts of the case. Hard-working hospices now cannot provide end-of-life care and schools cannot roll out education because they are having to make tough choices around paying increased levels of employer national insurance contributions. That betrayal was not in the manifesto.

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that children deserve to be fed, and that it was right to raise employer national insurance contributions to pay into public services, in order to free up the resource to introduce breakfast clubs to feed young children, many of whom are in poverty due to Tory policies?

[Robbie Moore]

Obviously I agree that children need to be fed, but I would gently say to the hon. Member, “Be honest with the public.” The Prime Minister promised before the general election that hard-working people would not be taxed. What was then rolled out? A rise in employer national insurance contributions. It is those organisations that provide a public service—our councils, hospices, hospitals, GP practices and schools—that are impacted by that rise, and their budgets have not increased at the same rate as those taxes have. Therefore, the level of service that they are able to roll out is diminished as a result of this Labour Government.

Having spoken to many constituents on the doorstep, I know that what angers them the most—the reason they signed this petition—is they have been duped by this Government through promises that did not come through and a strategy that was not in the manifesto. The Government then followed up with the U-turns—crikey, what have we seen this year alone? Inheritance tax changes have been rolled out on our farmers and small businesses—yes, the relief has increased, but it goes nowhere near far enough. The Conservatives believe that the family farm tax and the family business tax should be axed, but the thresholds have simply been tweaked.

Then, of course, there is the statutory inquiry into grooming gangs. Let us rewind to a year ago: the then Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley (Yvette Cooper), stood at the Dispatch Box and said that we would have five local inquiries into grooming gangs, yet every Labour MP voted against having a national inquiry. It was only as a result of campaigning by the Opposition, as well as by many victims and survivors, that the narrative that we had to have a national inquiry continued. A year later, the Government were brought to the House—dragged to the House—to say that we would be having a national inquiry.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way; he is most generous with his time. Could he please explain why he thinks Labour MPs were so against voting for a national inquiry?

[Robbie Moore]

We have seen it at a national level, and the very same strategy was rolled out across Labour-run Bradford council, where a Conservative group motion was put before the council, urging it to vote for a national inquiry. What did the Labour councillors on Labour-run Bradford council do? They voted against that motion. This gets to the nub of the issue, because it should not be about politics; it should be about the difference between right and wrong. That, I feel, is why so many people have signed the petition. Yet again, this Labour Government—Home Secretary after Home Secretary—have been dragged to the Dispatch Box to carry out a further U-turn.

[Dr Arthur]

It is great to hear what is happening with Conservative council groups across the country in relation to the rape gang inquiry. What did the Conservative Government do over the last 14 years?

[Robbie Moore]

The grooming gangs taskforce was rolled out. As an individual, I have been clear; the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse under Theresa May, the Home Secretary at the time, provided a huge number of recommendations, and I have always advocated that they be put into force. But let us look at the timing. The 14 recommendations in the IICSA report—a very detailed report by Professor Alexis Jay—came out in 2022, and an equivalent amount of time has passed since the general election, so I ask the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur) why it is that this Labour Government have not implemented in full even one of those recommendations. That is shameful.

There have been further U-turns. The winter fuel allowance has changed. Our pensioners have been hugely negatively impacted by this Labour Government, and we can go on to the two-child benefit cap change and income tax. Labour MPs will say, “Those with the broadest shoulders need to bear the brunt of these choices”—like the Chagos deal, which cost something like £47 million, or the roll-out of digital ID at £1.8 million. But who is paying these bills? Basic rate income tax payers will see their income tax go up by £220 this year. They are not the individuals with the broadest shoulders, but it is these hard-working people across Keighley, Ilkley, Silsden and the Worth Valley who will pay for the disastrous decisions that the Government have made in the last 18 months.

[Alistair Strathern]

If I heard the hon. Gentleman right, he criticised us for the £280 tax burden that basic rate taxpayers face because of the threshold freeze that is in effect this year. He knows, of course, that that threshold freeze was in his Government’s manifesto going into the general election and part of their last Budget settlement. Did he criticise it at the time?

[Robbie Moore]

I do not agree at all with the basic rate income taxpayer having to pay an additional £220 this year. I do not think the vast majority of the country—including many of my constituents—voted for a tax rise of £64 billion over the last two Budgets to fund things that were not even in the Labour party’s manifesto, such as digital IDs, the Chagos deal and the raising of employer national insurance, which, as I have indicated, has had a huge impact on many of my constituents.

The reality is that in areas such as Braithwaite, Bracken Bank, Oxenhope, Haworth, Stanbury and Oakworth in my constituency, and across the country, people were promised one thing and clearly got another. They have seen chaos and U-turns, and most of all, the effect of Labour’s policies are hitting hard-working people across my constituency. The message to the Government is this: get a grip and start delivering for those hard-working people. Be in no doubt, the public will not forgive, and they will not forget.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. I remind colleagues that the focus of this debate is not a general critique of the Government, or indeed a general defence of the Government. The focus of this debate is on whether or not there should be a general election.

17:49

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Edward.

I thank the Petitions Committee for this debate, and I thank those who engaged and signed the petition. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), I always look at the petitions that come into this place, because they are a way for the public to raise their voice and set an agenda here. Like him, I can understand why people signed this petition. I will address that today because, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern), I am concerned about the rise of public mistrust in our politics and politicians—be that at a local or national level—and their ability to achieve positive change. Let me be clear, though: another general election is not the answer. People want long-term development and delivery, not political games.

We are now 18 months into this parliament, and we inherited a mess. I like to think about it in a pictorial way, seeing it as a desolate and broken kitchen. Plates were piled high, some lay smashed on the floor and some were empty. Some cupboard doors were falling off, and some of the cupboards were empty. The justice cupboard was overflowing with victims waiting for their day in court. The education cupboard was empty, having been neglected because trying to fix anything was felt to be a lose-lose-lose situation. The growth cupboard had been abandoned, while the NHS cupboard had just fallen apart and was lying on the floor. The bottle inside the defence cupboard was open and the liquid was spilling down on to the floor, as people and contracts were left. Worst of all, the child poverty cupboard was empty, as were many kids’ stomachs.

We have been in office for 18 months since inheriting that mess. Fourteen years of Conservative failure hollowed out our public services. The Conservative-Lib Dem coalition lit the fuse, and the damage was done in the years afterwards. Cities such as Portsmouth paid the price. Communities, families and individuals absorbed the shock, while those who were responsible simply walked away.

Those who were involved do not get to pretend that that was not their doing. Opposition Members should reflect on their role and not just brush it aside. Then there is Reform, which is a party of grievance, not Government, propped up by failing Conservatives who keep joining it—they could not win honestly, so they changed their logo instead. They are not fighting for Portsmouth or Britain; they are fighting for relevance. Many of my constituents can see through that.

I am not a commentator; I represent and serve my city. Before I came into this House, I spent 24 years as a teacher in Portsmouth—one of the most trusted professions in the country. I worked with children, families and school staff every day, and I saw how bad decisions in Westminster landed in real lives. Indeed, that is the reason why I came into politics. In my opinion, the previous Government trashed primary education and gave up on our young people.

That experience, as well as seeing my own friends and family suffer, shapes everything I do in this place. Progress must be practical, fair and deliverable, or it is meaningless. I represent Portsmouth. I live and have lived its challenges. Since being elected, I have spoken over 170 times in this place, for my place. My team and I have closed more than 9,000 constituency cases. I have visited schools, businesses, charities and community groups week in and week out, from Brownies to breweries, and from bubble tea cafés to boxing clubs. That is what service looks like.

Sometimes, there are tough conversations and real difficulties, but because we are focused on delivering change, change is happening, although positive change takes time. However, the two-child limit on universal credit is being removed, helping 2,460 children in my area, 60% of whose families are working. Breakfast clubs are feeding children for free before school, youth hubs are opening, children are being protected from online harms, school uniform costs are falling and wages are rising. Renters’ and workers’ rights are improving as we scrap exploitative zero-hours contracts and section 21 no-fault evictions. NHS waiting times are coming down, while GP capacity is expanding and dental access is being addressed. For the first time ever, violence against women and girls is being addressed, and men’s health—

[John Lamont]

The hon. Lady is giving a list of her Government’s achievements in Portsmouth North. In her constituency, youth unemployment is up. Will she add that to the list as well?

[Amanda Martin]

We will add it to the list. We need to ensure that children and young people who are not in education, employment or training are not neglected by the Government—and they will not be.

Men’s health is finally being taken seriously. There is money for potholes, parks and policing. Pride in place funding is reaching deprived and previously ignored communities, like where my mum and dad were born, in Paulsgrove and beyond. Many of those policies, the Opposition voted against; if they had been in Government, we would not have had them.

Portsmouth is also a royal naval city. I am proud that my son serves, and that this Government are delivering the biggest armed forces pay rise in decades. Service families’ homes are improving, families can keep pets now and veterans have proper joined-up support through Op Valour. It is delivery, and not slogans, for our armed forces.

Brexit hurt Pompey businesses, and the damage was real. We now need to rebuild trade and trust, as we are doing. The India trade agreement alone will bring £300 million a year into the south-east, and investment in defence and apprenticeships is helping to make life more stable for young people who are out of employment.

For many in our city, it is a far cry from the days when shipbuilding was snatched from us under the previous Government and replaced with three useless Portsmouth Ministers. Portsmouth is receiving £13.1 million for safer streets, cleaner streets, improved bus services, better cycling and vital flood defences for our island city, to name just a few things.

I am especially proud of my own tool theft campaign, in which I led a movement of local tradespeople and national bodies. Despite recent noise from the Opposition Benches, before I was elected, politicians ignored this crime and, in fact, this sector. But tool theft destroys lives, and we know that the trade sector builds homes. We worked with the sector and changed the law. That is what happens when people in Government listen and act.

Do we have more to do? Absolutely we do, always, but in the last 18 months, I, and we as a Government, have listened, learned and delivered. Change works when it is built with communities, not imposed on them. That is why calls for an immediate general election ring hollow. Accountability matters, and chaos does not. My constituents know that life is hard, but they also know who is showing up and who is shouting from the sidelines. The country does not need more noise; it needs people who serve where they live, take responsibility, and get on with the job.

I thank the residents of Portsmouth North who signed this petition, and I assure them that my door is always open. I understand the frustration and the anger, but I encourage them to come along to the coffee mornings, join me for one of my “pint with your MP” events, or attend one of my many public events. I am here to listen and help, and to deliver for Portsmouth North, because it has not been delivered for in the last two decades. Today and tomorrow—and as long as I am here in this place—it is important to me to do that. Everybody I love lives in my city.

Petitions are an important part of our democracy, but this debate will not build a single home, fix a single struggling public service or help a single family in my city. My focus is on delivery, not disruption. I serve Portsmouth and will keep doing this job. We have far more in common than what divides us.

17:57

[Matt Vickers (Stockton West) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Vickers. This Labour Government came to office on the back of so many promises, and more than a million people have signed this petition because so many of those promises have been broken.

Labour promised our farmers that it would protect British agriculture, but it slammed them with the family farm tax, threatening food prices, threatening food security and causing misery for families who have farmed for generations. Labour said that it wanted to help Britain’s high streets and small businesses, but it battered them with the jobs tax, hiking up business rates and slashing reliefs.

Pensioners were promised security and support, but they had their winter fuel allowance ripped from their hands and were forced to sit in the cold and make the decision between heating and eating. Labour promised to cut energy bills by £300, yet the average family is now paying almost £200 more.

[Dr Rupa Huq in the Chair]

Labour promised us more police officers and police community support officers on our streets. Instead, we have seen cuts to police numbers and prisoners released early. We are now looking at an end to jury trials, and police chiefs are telling us about a funding shortfall of half a billion pounds.

Labour promised to end the use of asylum hotels, but the number of such hotels has risen and the number of those arriving illegally in the country has gone up, not just by a bit, but by 50%. Of those who have arrived illegally, fewer are now being deported.

The Prime Minister promised every council tax payer in the land “not a penny more” on council tax, yet council tax is on the up. In fact, taxes are on the up left, right and centre, and have reached a record high. Under this Government, those who work are paying more and more in tax and those who do not are getting more and more in benefits.

[Dr Arthur]

When the hon. Gentleman refers to people who are not in work getting more and more from the state, is he talking about our increase to the state pension?

[Matt Vickers]

We are talking about the end of the two-child cap and the ever-increasing amount spent on benefits in this country, while hard-working people—the guys who get up early and go out and graft all day—are paying more and more in tax. It is simply not fair.

Then there is the one thing in particular—it is one of many, actually—that did not feature at all in the Labour party manifesto but looks set to be imposed: digital ID. We do not want it, we do not need it and nobody voted for it. It fundamentally changes the relationship between citizen and state, and this Government have no mandate to do it.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is being very generous with his time. He talks about pledges that were not made in the manifesto. I can think of three: a Deputy PM had to resign for tax dodging, a Homelessness Minister had to resign for making people homeless, and an anti-corruption Minister had to resign over corruption. Does he think those things should have been in the manifesto?

[Matt Vickers]

The Prime Minister promised us that they were going to be whiter than white—a new start for politics, “in the service of working people”—but it has been one scandal after another. It is entirely appalling.

But there is one thing that Labour MPs and the Prime Minister promised everybody that stands out: they promised change. Well, boy have we got change, but it is not the change anybody voted for. The last Government left this country with the fastest growing economy in the G7, but under this Government we are below the G7 average. Growth has limped along at rates so weak that monthly GDP has slipped into contraction. This is not the growth that Labour promised; it is living standards being squeezed and promises unfulfilled. The only place we are seeing any real growth under this Government is in the size of our national debt.

Unemployment is up 21%. That is 21% more people without the security of a pay packet; families without the cash they need, having to make tough decisions, unable to fulfil their aspirations. Virtually every Labour Government in history have left office with more people out of work; this Government are set to do it in record time.

Nowhere is that seen more starkly than in the hospitality sector. Yes, the sector has faced tough times in the tough environment in which it operates, but under the last Government 18,000 jobs were created in the sector. Under this Government, as a result of the choices made in No. 10, 111,000 jobs have been lost, and two hospitality businesses are closing every day. That is the youngster getting their first job. It is the people who set up a small business and work day and night to create jobs and deliver economic growth. The jobs tax, rocketing business rates and the Employment Rights Act 2025 have real consequences. They are costing jobs, increasing prices and sending businesses fleeing.

I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) when he says that the word that comes up on the doorstep, time and again, is “betrayal”. People feel totally and utterly betrayed by this Labour Government, and Labour Members should ask themselves why. This Labour Government are riddled with scandal and chaos. They have broken pretty much every single promise they made to the British people. People have had enough. This is not the change anyone voted for. Our great country deserves better.

18:03

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I welcome this debate. My comments tonight will be directed at everyone in Dartford who signed the petition and all others in my wonderful constituency that I have the privilege of serving in this place.

Ahead of the election in July 2024, this country was crying out for change, and Dartford was no different. I recognise that there is now an expectation of that change being delivered as quickly as possible. We know that delivering real change is not easy—it takes time—but in my view, when I look around my constituency, it is happening. With around three years likely left until a general election, I want to use this moment briefly to take stock of what I said in Dartford that I would prioritise before the 2024 election and where progress is being made.

Dartford is one of the fastest growing towns in the UK, with lots of new homes being built. I very much welcome the new families who are making a great contribution to Dartford alongside our wonderful, hard-working existing communities, but they know that although the population has expanded over the last 15 years, very little has been spent on increasing the local infrastructure—the roads, the health provision—to meet the growing population. That really should not have come as a surprise to representatives of local government or national Government.

On NHS provision, I promised, in partnership with the Government, that we would make progress, and since the election we have been seeing that. We see it in the expanded community diagnostic centre at the Livingstone community hospital site and in the funding for a new intensive care unit at Darent Valley hospital, which will add crucial capacity elsewhere on the site. Waiting lists are coming down, but we have much more to do—that is what I say to Dartford residents who signed the petition—in particular on GP capacity across Swanscombe and Ebbsfleet, where pressure on appointments is most acute.

I recently visited Swanscombe health centre, which is among the busiest in Kent. It has added 11,000 patients to its roll in the last five years as a result of our growing community, and it desperately needs infrastructure investment to meet that growing need. Despite the fact that community infrastructure levy money is being spent on increased provision, that part of my constituency would be ideal for one of the new wave of neighbourhood health centres being planned by Ministers in the Department of Health and Social Care. I hope to make that case robustly in the months ahead. If we have a general election, it will be difficult to do that.

Another key issue for Dartford on which I stood at the last election is that the town is regularly gridlocked by terrible traffic. My plan, which I put before residents at the election, was to get Dartford moving again—again, in partnership with the Government. We said we would invest in infrastructure, and we have had some hugely positive news on the lower Thames crossing, which will reduce congestion at the Dartford crossing and make Dartford residents’ lives freer from terrible air and the congestion that they see every day. Government funding is now in place, and planning consent has been given for the lower Thames crossing. We are now at the start of a procurement process for the machinery needed to dig under the River Thames and create the new crossing. I am eagerly awaiting news from the Government on the next steps on the private finance package that needs to be put in place to make the scheme work. I am anxious to see spades in the ground in the near future, under this Government.

One of the crucial projects to get Dartford moving again is the repair of Galley Hill Road, which collapsed in early 2023—almost three years ago—cutting a crucial route between my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesham (Dr Sullivan). That road closure has led to an increase in traffic and, in particular, an increase in heavy good vehicles passing through roads in Swanscombe that cannot accommodate them. It has been a disaster for the community.

I am pleased that it was a visit to that site by Transport Ministers after the 2024 general election that inspired the Government to create the structures fund announced in the spending review last year. The fund is designed specifically to repair rundown transport infrastructure such as Galley Hill Road. I have no doubt that had the last general election result been different, such a fund would not be in place. With details on the fund to come in the months ahead, it will be on Kent county council to put in a bid to the fund that has the best possible chance of finally getting Galley Hill Road fixed and once and for all ending the chaos on Swanscombe’s roads and for its communities.

The final topic that I campaigned hard on at the general election and that I believe the Government are making a significant difference on is the restoration of neighbourhood policing. Each neighbourhood across Dartford is unique, and it is crucial that we rebuild relationships between communities and the police officers there to keep them safe. The neighbourhood policing guarantee, a key item in the 2024 manifesto and introduced by the Government last year, will put that into action alongside the 13,000 additional police officers, PCSOs and special constables that we are putting into neighbourhood policing roles. We are already seeing more police in Dartford.

[Robbie Moore]

I am pleased to hear the hon. Member running through his campaign literature, but does he think it is right that a basic rate income tax payer in his Dartford constituency is paying an additional £220 this year to fund things such as the roll-out of digital ID, which was not in the Labour party’s manifesto, or the £47 billion Chagos deal? Is that the right thing for hard-working constituents in Dartford?

[Jim Dickson]

The residents in Dartford who voted for me wanted to see us deliver the things that I am talking about: infrastructure to improve their roads, a better NHS, additions to their local hospital and police on the streets. They are appreciating that. We are rebuilding the relationship between the police in Dartford and local residents.

I have been particularly pleased to meet officers across Dartford and the villages over the past 18 months, and I put on record my thanks for all they do. We have much more to do, particularly to ensure that police have the powers they need to tackle the troubling trend, which I have discovered in my constituency and across Kent more broadly, of catapults being used to target wildlife and people. I am gladdened by the response from Ministers at the Home Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which demonstrates again that this is a Government who listen.

[Matt Vickers]

Does the hon. Member know how many people have been put out of work in Dartford as a result of this Government’s actions?

[Jim Dickson]

Not very many. Actually, Dartford is in receipt of significant additional infrastructure spending, which is putting people into work. An example of how young people are going to be in work in Dartford in the future—

[John Lamont]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Dickson]

I am still responding to the last intervention. Dartford is lucky that North Kent college is the recipient of one of 10 national centre of excellence awards for construction. Dartford will be the south-east centre, and that will allow young people to get into jobs as infrastructure spending takes place in the constituency.

[John Lamont]

The intention of my intervention was to be helpful. The unemployment rate among young people in Dartford has gone up 11% in the past year as a direct consequence of decisions that the hon. Gentleman’s Government are making. What does he say to young people who are having job opportunities taken away from them?

[Jim Dickson]

I say: look at the additional spending going into Dartford to create jobs, and look at the Connect to Work project, set up by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is helping young people who are a long way from the labour market into good, well-paid jobs.

We clearly have much more to do to ensure that we have the police we need in Dartford, but I am confident that people in Dartford feel safer and will continue to feel safer, as long as we do not have a general election that sees those changes lost.

Finally—this is something that I am personally proud of—hon. Members may know that I was contacted by the family of Simone White, who tragically died of methanol poisoning in Laos late last year. It has been an honour to work with Simone’s family and the families of other victims of methanol poisoning on greater awareness of the risks. This is why it is important that we have a Government who listen. I am pleased that, as a result of the families’ campaigning work, the curriculum is being changed to add the risk of poisoning from methanol abroad to teaching about the hazards people can encounter when travelling, and that the Foreign Office has worked with the families to update its advice. Those changes are a testament to the courage and campaigning of the victims’ families, as well as to a Government who listen.

Since the election, we have made progress on crucial issues, with more to come in the years ahead. I look forward to working with Dartford residents, our vibrant community groups, our faith groups and our businesses to keep driving positive changes in our area. That is what I say to people in Dartford who signed the petition.

18:14

[Lillian Jones (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq.

After only 18 months in office, this UK Labour Government have taken decisions that have ended Tory austerity and delivered the largest block grant to Scotland since devolution. After years of Tory under-investment, £50 billion for Scotland’s vital public services—schools, hospitals and local councils, whose budgets have been cut to the bone—is welcome. Other decisions taken by this Labour Government will lift 95,000 Scots children out of poverty. That is helping 2,097 children in my constituency of Kilmarnock and Loudoun. After this Parliament, half a million children across the UK will be lifted out of poverty. That makes me burst with pride—it is the reason I am in politics.

We have raised the minimum wage, meaning that 200,000 Scots got a pay rise. We have delivered the Employment Rights Act 2025, protecting workers, strengthening their rights, banning zero-hours contracts and ending fire and rehire. We have confirmed £42 million in investment for Kilmarnock and Loudoun for infrastructure, regeneration and civic pride. That is Labour delivering for our communities.

Hundreds of miners in Kilmarnock and Loudoun have finally got justice too. BCSSS pensioners and the mineworkers’ pension scheme members have seen uplifts to their pensions of 41% and 32% respectively. It was their money, and I am proud that this Labour Government finally gave them justice. We are coming after covid fraudsters too. Under this Government, we will get taxpayers’ money back.

Labour has introduced a mansion tax and an online gambling tax, and it is standing up to big tech firm platforms, because free speech does not mean the freedom to abuse, exploit or degrade women or girls, although Reform may disagree.

The economy has been stabilised: six interest rate cuts have saved businesses in my constituency thousands of pounds, and made mortgages cheaper for homeowners—another manifesto commitment delivered. We have also delivered trade deals with Australia, India and the US, protecting 150,000 jobs, including thousands in the Scotch Whisky industry. We are giving opportunity back to our young people by securing the UK’s return to the Erasmus+ scheme.

Those are just a few of our achievements after only 18 months, but there is much more to do. This Government are in the service of the British people, and I will continue to work hard and deliver for all in Kilmarnock and Loudoun.

18:16

[Dr Scott Arthur (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for introducing the debate, although he was a little “glass half-empty” when assessing the Government’s record.

One of the challenges facing the Government is that, when it comes to borrowing, our bond rate remains high because of the calamitous Budget set by Liz Truss. It showed the world that we were capable of making horrendously bad decisions, which also impacts on our ability to attract investment to the UK. Although I support the idea of a recall petition for MPs, a recall petition for whole Governments would just further weaken confidence in us as a country.

I do understand the sentiment of the people who signed the petition, and particularly the people from Edinburgh South West. Many would have started their first job, or perhaps got married, around the 2008 financial crisis, and that would have impacted their ability to move on in life. Some would have felt the impact of Brexit, which has been a huge financial disruptor in the UK, and again that would have affected their life chances. Both those things are once-in-a-generation events, but right in the middle of them, we had a once-in-a-century event—the covid pandemic. So a lot of people in the UK right now have not had a fair chance to get on in life, and that leaves them feeling frustrated.

Then, along come parties that are keen to sow division. They do not offer answers; all they do is amplify that feeling of mistrust and of being left behind. We heard that from the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson), who gave us a long list of things he thinks are wrong with the country, but not a single solution other than misleading leaflets. That is something I talked about when I was touring schools in my constituency as part of Parliament Week last year. Children in modern studies and politics classes asked why politics is so divisive in the UK.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is most generous with his time. He talked about divisiveness in politics, and he said that schoolchildren are picking up on that. At Quarrydale academy in Ashfield, a year 9 history class was being taught polities. There was a chart on the wall; on one side, it said, “far-right” and “Nazis”, next to pictures of my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage), myself, Oswald Mosley and Mussolini. Does the hon. Gentleman think that that is the right way to teach our children?

[Dr Arthur]

This is a serious point. I would hope that teachers are not teaching children that. Although I disagree with the hon. Member’s politics, I do not rank it alongside that of the far-right politicians he has mentioned from history. Of course, if this was part of a school assignment, I am sure he would be the first to talk about freedom of speech; children have that right as well. However, I hope that those things are not being taught in schools; in fact, I am sure they are not.

In the schools that I went to, one thing that came up was LGBT rights. Some students were absolutely disgusted by some of the comments from Reform, which were echoed earlier in the debate in relation to access to healthcare for people who are part of the trans community. Students are absolutely disgusted by what is happening because they care; they have friends who face this issue, and they care about it passionately. I urge the hon. Member to represent everyone when he makes his comments.

In the classrooms, I was challenged on what I thought the Government’s greatest achievement was. I am an emotional person, and the thing that got me most emotional was voting for better employment rights for women and making it harder for employers to sack women just because they were pregnant, had had a miscarriage or were returning from having a baby. I think that is something we would all support; I know some Members might have voted against it, but I am sure we all think these are good things.

Likewise, I said I was proud of the work the Government were doing to lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty. I said that knowing that some of the children in that very classroom would benefit from that policy and that other children in the classroom would maybe know who those children were. I am really proud of what the Government are doing in that space.

[John Lamont]

As the hon. Member will know, there is wide speculation in the Scottish press about a plot among Scottish Labour MPs to bring down the Prime Minister. Labour MPs are quoted as describing the Prime Minister as “terrible”, “incompetent”, “mind-blowingly stupid”, and saying they are going to get “slaughtered” in the Scottish Parliament elections. Is the hon. Member part of that plot?

[Dr Arthur]

Absolutely not. Those are not comments I am familiar with at all. I would advise the hon. Member not to focus on newspapers’ speculation and to focus on supporting his constituents.

I talked to the young people in school about how the Government take our international treaties on both the climate and human rights seriously, and they value that. I also talked about the plans to extend the voting age for general elections in Scotland to 16. Young voters can already vote at 16 in other elections in Scotland.

[Robbie Moore]

Before the hon. Member moves on, does he recognise the level of frustration there is with the Employment Rights Act 2025? My inbox has been filled with a lot of emails and correspondence from lobby organisations representing those with disabilities and special educational needs. They are frustrated that the Act will make it much more difficult for an employer to take a risk on giving an opportunity to someone with additional challenges or needs, so that there will be much less opportunity for them. Is he proud that the Government are aiming to do that with the Employment Rights Act and are not recognising those challenges?

[Dr Arthur]

The hon. Member knows that that is not the intention of the Government. He is welcome to visit my constituency, where I can help him meet lots of people who already support those with additional needs into work. They are doing fantastic work. I am sure that whatever the Government do will build on that success.

I am proud that the Government have learned from Edinburgh and introduced a pavement parking ban last week that will give councils across England the powers to introduce one. Again, that is a great step in creating a more equal UK. I am also really happy with the road safety strategy, which will save thousands of lives.

In Scotland, as we have already heard, we have had our biggest ever settlement. It is still a bit of a mystery to me how the Scottish Government spent that money. One of the biggest challenges we face in Edinburgh South West—this will have been part of the frustration that led people to sign the petition—is the housing crisis. I was really disappointed that last week the Scottish Government voted to tax house building in the middle of a housing emergency. That is the kind of Government we face in Scotland. We could talk about the UK Government, but people should look at the Scottish Government before doing so.

And I am really proud of what my office has done in the past year. It has resolved 8,000 cases and accumulated £303,000 of financial gain for constituents, mostly due to my colleague Lucie in my office. We also had a big impact on the Budget. Our lobbying brought about changes to inheritance tax and infected blood payments, and also brought reform to the Pension Protection Fund, ensuring that there was some indexation of the payments.

However, cutting across everything that happens in my constituency, there is still the cost of living crisis. There is also the growing youth employment that we have, particularly in Scotland—a point raised repeatedly by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk. Immigration is also a real issue. People feel that the previous Government lost control of immigration—I think we can accept that—and that the current Government must do more to bring it back under control. I say that as someone whose life was saved by an immigrant back in 2015, and who also worked at a university. So I understand the benefits of immigration, but we have to get it to a place where it is supporting the country as a whole, and I think there are some questions about that.

To conclude, we have used the word “betrayal” quite a lot in the debate, and I really regret that, because it has often been used to deliberately amplify division in the country and among people listening to the debate. As a Parliament, we have a duty to talk much more about where we agree. I am sure we agree with the point raised earlier about improving employment rights for pregnant women, women returning from childbirth and women who have had miscarriages. I hope that, for the remainder of this Parliament, we can spend more time talking about what we have in common and engaging with the electorate on that. Then, we will perhaps be able to focus on delivery rather than petitions.

[Dame Harriett Baldwin]

On a point of order, Dr Huq. Could you clarify whether it is in order for so many Government speakers in the debate to have left the Chamber before the Front-Bench speeches to listen to their beleaguered Prime Minister at the parliamentary Labour party meeting?

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

I think they all had to ask for permission. They should return for the concluding speeches, but we are finishing a bit earlier than we thought. We are already on the Front-Bench speeches. Usually, that would be 45 minutes before the end. I can inform the Chairman of Ways and Means and get some clarification for the future, because these things are always fluid. Anyway, I call the first of our Front Benchers, Lisa Smart.

18:27

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Thank you very much, Dr Huq. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair.

Across the country there is a clear and growing discontent, with many people expressing frustration over the way the country does—and, importantly, does not—work. Waiting times for doctors’ appointments are too long. Everything is so expensive, and more and more people feel like their income does not stretch to the end of the month. The social care reform we were promised will not arrive for at least three years, and new hospital projects will not be completed for decades. My own Stepping Hill hospital did not even make the list, despite its £138 million repairs backlog. Business owners talk of it being harder to take on and train new staff. Teachers report that they are not equipped to deliver the education our most vulnerable children need. And councils cannot stretch their budgets to do what most of us consider the basics—like filling the blooming potholes.

It is no wonder, then, that this widespread dissatisfaction is directed towards the current Government. Although they inherited various steaming piles of disaster from the previous, shambolic Conservative Government, Labour’s recent back-pedalling and flip-flopping is bound to test even their staunchest supporters.

[Josh Newbury]

The hon. Lady rightly refers to the steaming piles of rubbish that this Government were left, but many of us believe that the rot really set in in 2010, when the austerity programme was initiated with her party’s involvement. How many of those steaming piles of rubbish does she lay at her own party’s door?

[Lisa Smart]

No Government is perfect, but I am immensely proud—and will be to my dying day—that some of my friends in a same-sex relationship can get married, when they were not allowed to do so under the previous Labour Government. I am immensely proud—I say this as a school governor for 20 years—that the kids who need the most support get it through the pupil premium. And I am immensely proud, that that showed that a grown-up, consensual coalition Government can work. The hon. Member will know—I am sure he read Alistair Darling’s budgetary plans in the run-up to the 2010 election—that the then Labour Government planned to cut more than either the Liberal Democrats or the Conservatives. So although I did not agree with everything the 2010 to 2015 Government did—no sane person possibly could—I am proud that we delivered what so many people wanted and needed. There is always work for every Government to do.

The million or so members of the public who signed this petition, including 1,987 of my Hazel Grove constituents, are calling for a change via a general election. They are feeling frustrated and disappointed that this Government have failed to deliver the change that they promised at the 2024 election.

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

In my constituency of Epsom and Ewell, more than 1,500 people have signed this petition; I hear regularly on the doorstep how disgruntled and frustrated they are. They are tired of working so hard and barely making ends meet. Although the Conservatives left a complete mess, Labour has simply not delivered either. People are not any feeling better off. Does my hon. Friend agree that we must grow the economy? A great way to do that would be to have a bespoke customs union with Europe.

[Lisa Smart]

I am delighted that I am not going to be the first Liberal Democrat to mention a bespoke customs union with the EU. I strongly agree with my hon. Friend on that point; it is the biggest single lever that the Government could pull to boost growth in our economy.

Recently, we have seen the Government U-turn—rightly, in some cases—including on the family farm tax, following 14 months of calls for change from farmers, the Lib Dems and others. That has been alongside U-turns on winter fuel and benefit reform, to name just two others. I understand why a million people are underwhelmed. The Government have introduced a growth-crushing jobs tax that has stretched their manifesto pledge not to raise income tax on working people. As a result, jobs are being lost, economic growth is flatlining and the Government are not showing a clear enough vision to get us out of this mess.

While the Government now increasingly acknowledge that Brexit has been detrimental to economic growth, they have failed to take sufficiently meaningful action to address that reality. The figures are stark. According to the House of Commons Library, as of 2025 Brexit is costing British tax payers £90 billion annually in lost tax revenue. That is billions of pounds not funding our public services. The Government must move beyond merely attributing blame on Brexit and begin implementing solutions.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Epsom and Ewell (Helen Maguire) mentioned, we Liberal Democrats are urging the Government to negotiate a new UK-EU customs union, which could raise more than £25 billion annually for the Exchequer. A customs union would be the most effective means of dismantling trade barriers and stimulating economic growth. We must be far more ambitious in securing the best possible arrangements for UK relations with the EU—our largest trading partner.

[Dr Al Pinkerton (Surrey Heath) (LD)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Lisa Smart]

I give way to the Liberal Democrat Europe spokesperson.

[Dr Pinkerton]

I am grateful.

More than 1,800 of my constituents have signed the petition that has prompted today’s debate. It would be arrogant for me to assume that those people are necessarily indicating their support for an EU customs union, although it would be sensible if they did. But what I hear from them is that they are feeling worse off than they did yesterday and face the prospect that their children will be worse off tomorrow than they are today. They have signed this petition asking for an urgent general election.

The Government have to reconcile this point: unless they can deliver meaningful growth that people can actually feel, there may not be a general election tomorrow but they will be made to pay a high political price the next time one comes. What are they going to do to give the UK the massive dollop of economic growth that this country needs and our constituents need to feel?

[Lisa Smart]

My hon. Friend, as always, speaks powerfully on these issues and I agree with him wholeheartedly, as I often do. This Government are struggling and the official Opposition look increasingly like a mediocre turquoise tribute act. However, we face an even more dangerous threat to our country’s values and our future if the next general election delivers the results that the current polls suggest. There are political forces who, if left to their own devices, would move us closer to a model similar to that promoted by President Trump: one without a universal NHS, where patients face high insurance costs or are denied care altogether; one that relies on expensive fossil fuels and permits widespread fracking while climate change accelerates; and one where the Government can erode basic rights and freedoms by leaving the European convention on human rights.

We must be clear about what this political retirement home for disgraced ex-Ministers represents economically. Its fiscal proposals mirror the disastrous Truss mini-Budget, which its leader praised at the time. He now proposes to replicate it through massive, unfunded spending commitments supported only by vague promises of unrealistic savings. Perhaps even more troubling is the platforming of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists and dangerous health misinformation. Shamefully, the leader of a UK political party has adopted Trump’s approach of refusing to push back against dangerous misinformation, including false claims regarding paracetamol use during pregnancy that risk leaving expectant mothers suffering unnecessarily. That is dangerous claptrap from those seeking to win the next general election.

The Liberal Democrats advocate a fundamentally different approach to how we should change our country, in ways that the voting public would welcome and that would leave a lasting legacy. We must fix social care if we want to stand any chance of having an NHS that we can continue to be proud of. We must focus on genuinely local community engagement rather than centralised, developer-led planning, to get the homes, including the social homes, that our communities need and our constituents deserve, with zero-carbon homes as standard for all new construction. We must reform our politics and democracy so that the public feel that their voices are heard and that more people get what they voted for.

I welcome the Government’s plans for the removal for life of hereditary peers from being able to make laws, and I will welcome the introduction of votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in future general elections. But that all feels a bit too timid, and the moment demands more. One of the most regrettable impacts of the Government’s cancellation of local elections in some parts of England is that it gives succour to those who seek to stoke distrust in our democracy and divide our communities. Trust in our politics is vital, and we all need to take to steps to build it, not destroy it. Changing the way our politics works by capping donations to political parties, restoring the independence of the Electoral Commission to remove political interference in how electoral rules are enforced, and changing the way we elect our MPs are all suggestions I make constructively to the Minister.

Proportional representation ensures that seats broadly match votes, that every voter has a meaningful say, and that Governments represent the majority of the electorate. This Government got roughly one third of the votes in 2024; they were rewarded with roughly two thirds of the seats and almost all of the power. Evidence shows that PR leads to higher voter turnout, more representative Governments and more stable policy making. We already have PR in the UK, just not here in Westminster: it is already used in different forms in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in the vast majority of democracies worldwide. It is surely reckless to maintain an electoral model that consistently produces such wildly disproportionate groups of MPs and leaves millions of voters feeling ignored.

[Lee Anderson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lisa Smart]

I would be utterly delighted.

[Lee Anderson]

I thank the hon. Lady. She talks about representation and proportionality in the country and in this place. Is she aware that Reform UK got 4.1 million votes in the last election, but got five MPs, and the Lib Dems got 3.6 or 3.7 million votes and got 71 or 72 MPs?

[Lisa Smart]

It was 72.

[Lee Anderson]

They got 72 MPs. Yet the Lib Dems are allowed on every single Select Committee and Bill Committee, but Reform UK is not. Is that fair?

[Lisa Smart]

I would be genuinely delighted to talk about the many and varied ways in which we could change this place that I am sure the hon. Gentleman and I would agree about. There is a chance that we agree, although I am not entirely sure whether we still do, about how we elect people to this place. People elect their MPs to come here and represent them, and that includes fair representation on Select Committees, and that should be proportionate. Given the total of 650 MPs, including five Reform MPs, there is a risk that we would end up with about 100 MPs on each Committee to maintain proportionality. I do not think that that is practicable or practical.

The hon. Gentleman and I would agree in many ways on how we should reform this place and change it for the better. The voting tonight is due to start soon; we are going to be going for many hours until late tonight, as I understand it. I suspect that he and I will feel similarly about that as a way to run a country. [Interruption.] Voting is a good thing, of which there should more, but I think that other democracies in other parts of the world have found a more effective and efficient way of doing it than voting at midnight by walking through a corridor for 15 minutes.

It is reckless to maintain an electoral model that so consistently produces such wildly disproportionate groups of MPs and leaves millions of voters feeling ignored. If those trends are allowed to continue, it is not difficult to see how turnout will fall further, results will become even more distorted and political instability will grow.

We can look at what has happened in actual ballot boxes since the last general election: in 2025, the Liberal Democrats won more councillors than Labour or the Conservatives for the first time, and won more local council by-elections than any other party. We Lib Dems look forward to May’s local elections and are well up for the next general election, whenever it is called. It is shaping up to be a battle to stop Trump’s UK fanboys from doing to our communities what their idol is doing to America.

I am a bit worried about what the future holds for our country, but I choose to be optimistic. The British people are bright, innovative, witty and sarky, and they will not put up with snake oil salesmen peddling conspiracy theories and division for very long. The people will let the Government, whoever they are, know that they are livid with them—not usually by rioting in the streets but by taking the mickey out of them, mercilessly. Long may that continue.

18:40

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak with you in the Chair, Dr Huq, not least because when I was a teenager Dr Hook was one of my favourite bands—not all hon. Members will have heard of them.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

When you were “in love with a beautiful woman”!

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I was, absolutely.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for his excellent opening speech. He made so many good points, not least about the level of support for this petition. With 1 million signatories—including 2,040 people from my constituency of Thirsk and Malton—this is the eighth most-signed petition in history. This is such an important debate. The petition states that this country wants and needs “an immediate general election”.

I am the first to admit, having been in government myself, that governing is not easy; it is a difficult business. But one or two Labour Members, including the hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Dr Arthur), said that this petition was somehow about us sowing division. The hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) said that there was somehow a Conservative plot to bring this petition to a debate. As a number of hon. Members have said, there are real people out there very concerned about what they see as betrayal and about how much they have been let down. They are angry. Dismissing their concerns on the basis that there is some kind of political plot is a big mistake. It was also a mistake for the Government to respond, as they did to this petition on 11 August 2025, by saying that they are

“fixing the foundations, rebuilding Britain and restoring…confidence”.

This Government are not listening and do not understand what the people are saying to them.

[Dr Arthur]

I think I am being slightly misrepresented, or perhaps I was unclear. I perfectly understand why people signed the petition. I explained that a lot of people feel left behind by the way the economy has evolved over the last 20 years. People are frustrated, and that frustration has been harvested by parties that offer no solutions to the problems. That is perhaps the point I was making; sincere apologies if I was not clear.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I welcome the hon. Member’s explanation. I appreciate it; he seems like a very decent Member. It is very important that we listen to the public. There are some genuine concerns about what the Government set out to do, and about what they are actually doing.

[Lee Anderson]

The hon. Gentleman is being most generous with his time and has returned me the favour of an intervention. He talks about listening to the public; the public are very angry about the Chagos deal. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Opposition parties should use all the possible levers, in this place and the other place, to kill that Bill?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I agree with the hon. Member entirely. That is a terrible Bill, which we have opposed at every stage. Paying tens of billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money to give away our own territory and rent it back is ludicrous.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. I am being told by the Clerk that this is getting way out of scope. We are debating a petition to have a general election.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That issue is one of the many things that the people who signed the petition are concerned about, Dr Huq.

One of the big things that the Government promised, which I agree with them about, is the need to encourage faster growth in our economy. Of course that is right, but look at where that growth is. There is growth in inflation and in unemployment—including youth unemployment, which is rising significantly, with 5.2% of the working-age population unemployed compared with 4.2% when this Government took over. Taxes are also growing, to the tune of £60-odd billion a year. That is against the backdrop of the promises made about a fully costed, fully funded manifesto. No wonder people are angry. Debt and borrowing are up—on interest alone, gilt yields are higher than ever, at 5.72%. We pay £116 billion every year purely in debt interest. Small boat numbers are up 13%, year on year.

The cost of living is one of the greatest concerns of my and no doubt all hon. Members’ constituents. Against the backdrop of a promise to cut electricity prices by £300 a year, the average household now pays £190 more.

[Dr Arthur]

It is important to reflect that because of Liz Truss’s Budget, gilt rates are still higher in the UK than they would otherwise be. But gilt rates are rising right around the world—the hon. Member must accept that. While they are higher in the UK, they are high right around the world. Does he accept that every developed country faces that challenge? They are higher in this country because of Liz Truss as well.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That last point is complete nonsense. I was going to agree with the hon. Member that generally Government borrowing is higher because of where interest rates are. The most important thing we can do is get inflation under control to reduce the cost of debt. But the reality is that our margin above the rest of the world is higher than it has been for years; I am sure the hon. Member will not dispute that fact.

How do we get growth? We do not go about it the way Members on the Government Benches are talking about. I listened to the hon. Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson), who made a good speech about the priorities of his constituents and what he is doing. But, as with a number of other Members, when it came to achieving growth all he talked about was long-term spending and infrastructure—I am not saying that is not important—or certain allocations of cash from the Government to those areas. What Government Members are not talking about is where growth is really driven from: small businesses. Governments do not create jobs— not sustainably. The only thing that creates growth and increases the number of jobs in our economy is small businesses. That point has been notably absent from the comments of Government Members.

[Patrick Hurley]

If the hon. Member knows how to get growth and bring up the GDP of the country, why has the economy been stagnating since 2010? Why did he not do anything about it?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The UK economy went through many challenges, of course, some of them caused by Brexit; the reality is that a change like that was bound to have a short-term effect—but only a short-term effect. The country grew faster than Germany and France during that period of time. The reality is that we were the third-fastest growing economy in the G7 over that period.

To go back to where we are today—[Interruption.] If only the hon. Member for Southport would accept, rather than chuntering from a sedentary position, that the reality is that small business drives growth and the number of jobs in the economy. Business confidence in July 2024 was plus five, according to the Institute of Directors; today it is minus 66—one of the steepest falls in history.

I speak as someone who has not been a politician all his life. I have done this for 10 years; in the 30 previous years, I started a small business that grew into a large business. I have been through the ups and downs. What the country needs, and what those businesses need, is confidence and stability of policy making.

[Patrick Hurley]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I will make some progress. What have we seen in terms of that policymaking? We have seen U-turn after U-turn. My hon. Friends the Members for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin) mentioned the number of U-turns. [Interruption.]

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. We will suspend for 15 minutes for a Division in the House.

18:49

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

19:01

On resuming—

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

We will resume with Kevin Hollinrake.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Thank you, Dr Huq. I was talking about the many U-turns we had seen from this Government, which my hon. Friends also mentioned, such as on the winter fuel allowance and the family farm tax. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore) for the incredible job he has done campaigning on that, as well as on the family business tax, of course, which is even more pernicious in many ways, and the grooming gangs, which he did a huge amount on. Business rates is the latest U-turn coming down the track.

That is why people feel betrayed and angry. I am sure—having been there in the past as well—that hon. Members on the Government side of the House also feel betrayed and angry with their own leadership, for marching them up to the top of the hill and marching them back down again on many of these issues, but they do not feel as betrayed as the businesspeople in this country in particular. Those businesspeople need stability and need to understand exactly what is coming down the track next.

We have had a Chancellor who constantly allowed speculation to take place, months before a Budget. That destroys confidence, which damages the economy—the source of the investment needed to drive forward the economy and the number of jobs. That is the antithesis of what a responsible and good Chancellor should do.

As I said before, governing is not easy; we had many challenges ourselves, and we did not get everything right, but what we did during that difficult period of time—those 14 years—was get 1.2 million more people employed in our economy. Unemployment was halved during our time in office. Our schools went from 68% good or outstanding to 90% by the end of our tenure. We got 100,000 more doctors and nurses in the NHS. We got record numbers of houses being built—a 50-year record. That was all against the backdrop of covid, the cost of living crisis, and the other challenges that we had when we were governing this country. That shows what is possible, and, of course, at the same time, we were keeping the very dangerous right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) out of No. 10 Downing Street. Of course, many Government Members supported his leadership challenge.

We are here now, looking forward to a general election coming down the track. We are ready for a general election when the Government are, because, unlike them, we have a strong leader—against their weak leader. We will bring forward a stronger economy, with stronger borders and a stronger country. We will cut the cost of doing Government and make £47 billion of savings. With those savings, we will reduce the debt and, crucially, cut the cost of doing business, particularly for small businesses. We will scrap stamp duty for primary homes and scrap business rates for any business spending less than £110,000 a year on business rates. These measures support small businesses. That is what we would do, given the opportunity. We are all here in the national interest of course—to try to do the best by this country—but in our view, it is in the national interest for this Government to leave office and put a general election to the people.

19:05

[The Minister without Portfolio (Anna Turley)]

It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) for moving the motion on behalf of the signatories of the e-petition across the country asking for a general election. I was very struck by how many Opposition Members prayed in aid the number of people who signed this petition. Of course, it was enough to bring us this debate, which we must take note of, but as was flagged by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley), that number is down by two thirds on this time last year. I want hon. Members to think about that. If numbers are the driving force for how people feel and the strength of feeling about a general election, perhaps Conservative Members can reflect on that two-thirds decline and what it represents.

I thank all hon. Members who participated. So many of them have shown themselves to be true advocates of their communities and their constituents. We have seen some fantastic examples of passion and commitment to the issues that people care about in their communities and how hard some many Members of Parliament are working in the face of so much cynicism about politics today. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to respond to this debate on behalf of the Labour Government—a Government that I am extremely proud to be a part of, following 14 years of Conservative and Lib Dem chaos and decline. I have listened to the contributions of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and others, and it is clear now, as it was at the last general election, that the Tories are not serious, cannot be trusted and have not learned from the failures they made in office. I did not hear any apologies or any humility about the chaos and ruin they left. The noise and the bluster of impotent opposition that we have heard in this debate is leaving us to get on with the job of fixing the mess that they left.

I am not often surprised these days, but I have to admit that I am today, because it is a surprise to see the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) in this debate. The problem with Reform is that it cannot deliver the change this country needs, because it is not fit to govern, and despite being paid to represent their constituents, too often their MPs withdraw questions in this House, miss votes, and sit as bystanders in the gallery, but they always turn up when there is a chance to get on telly or get a clip for social media. I hope that the hon. Gentleman, a former Tory himself, is happy to welcome the 23rd former Conservative MP to Reform. If that does not send a message that Reform are the same old failed Tories in a slightly different shade of blue, then I do not know what does. It is just another party that does not believe in the NHS or rights for working people and has nothing to offer people on issues such as the cost of living that we know matter to them.

This Labour Government were elected with the largest majority that any party has secured since the last Labour Government’s landslide victory in 1997. This Labour Government are committed to delivering the people’s priorities, and since coming into office, we have been busy delivering on our promise of change. As Labour Members have articulated so clearly, we know that we were elected with a clear mandate to deliver the change that people asked for. My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) said that people voted to reject the previous Government’s record of 14 years of austerity, and he is absolutely right, because let us be honest about where we started when we won the election in 2024.

Decades of decline do not disappear in months; we know that. The financial crisis, Brexit, a pandemic and war in Europe all helped to drive the challenges that we have faced financially in this country. But on top of that, years of weak and irresponsible Government left living standards falling, public services stretched to breaking point, too many communities feeling forgotten and left behind, and, as the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) said, a steaming pile of rubbish. I could not agree more with her analysis.

That was our inheritance, but we know that life is still harder than it should be for so many people in this country, and I understanding that that is why so many people have signed this petition. People are absolutely right to be impatient. We know that the cost of living continues to bear down on people, but we are taking rapid action to ease that burden. I am proud that living standards are forecast to grow by 2.9% over this Parliament. Under the last failed Tory Government, disposable income fell for the first time since records began in the 1950s—hardly a record that Members here can begin to defend.

We are taking action to tackle the deficit and crisis that the previous Government created—the crashing of an economy, where they allowed Liz Truss to experiment with the country’s finances and sent mortgages, rents and bills soaring. Since coming into office, we are reversing that decline. Families are already £800 better off. As my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Lillian Jones) said, 200,000 workers in Scotland are getting a pay rise, mortgages are down £14,000 compared with where they were when we won the election, and wages are up more in 10 months than they were in 10 years with the Tories. That is a record to be proud of.

[Robbie Moore]

That is just not what people in Keighley and Ilkley and across the Worth valley are feeling. Why are the Labour Government increasing the amount of tax that a basic rate taxpayer is paying by another £220 this year? Why is it that Labour-run Bradford council has tried to increase council tax by 14.99% this year? On top of that, the Government are making decisions that were not in their manifesto, such as rolling out digital ID at a cost of £1.8 billon or the £47 billion Chagos deal. Those are things that the Government are doing beyond their manifesto promises, but which they are taxing hard-working people across Keighley for.

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. That is a bit on the long side for an intervention.

[Anna Turley]

I appreciate the hon. Member’s attempt to reiterate the speech that he made, but I would have thought that he would be grateful that there are 3,250 children in Keighley who will benefit from the lifting of the two-child limit. Those are children who we are investing in and who are going to contribute to the future. We are breaking cycles of dependency. I would have thought that the hon. Member would welcome that. I am sure that people in his constituency whose mortgages have come down would also be very grateful for that.

In November, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered a Budget that is bearing down on the cost of living and lifting millions of children out of poverty. In the constituency of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, children will benefit from the abolition of the two-child benefit cap thanks to action taken by this Labour Government.

[John Lamont]

The Minister is in danger of falling into the same trap that the Government did in their formal response to the petition, in that she is telling people that they should be grateful—“We’re doing all these things. You should be grateful.” People in my constituency do not feel grateful; they feel betrayed by a catalogue of broken promises.

[Anna Turley]

The hon. Member got up and talked about the glass being half-empty. If we are restoring trust in politics, it is important that we remind people about all the things that are happening. Of course, we know that it takes time for people to feel that in their pockets. We are confident that with every pay cheque this year, they will feel that more and more. However, the reality is that we should stand up and remind people about the changes that Governments make and that these changes have not happened by chance, but because of the choices made by this Labour Government, and I am proud to defend them.

In talking about the reasons for calling this debate, Opposition Members have talked about manifesto promises and so on. I want to run through some of the manifesto promises and commitments that this Government have made, to knock down their argument. This year we will take £150 off energy bills, the living wage is up £900 per year, we have extended the £3 bus fare, interest rates have been cut six times, we have frozen prescription fees to keep costs under £10 and we have taken 500,000 children out of poverty—that is an extra 3,000 in my constituency of Redcar. We are also protecting the triple lock for pensioners, which is worth over £1,900 over the course of this Parliament.

As the hon. Member has said, people in his constituency are still feeling the squeeze from the cost of living, but that is exactly why we have provided 30 hours of free childcare to help mums who are struggling to get into work and to get the support they need with childcare. That is £8,000 per year for parents. We have set up 750 primary school breakfast clubs to help those kids to get a healthy start in life. I have been to see them, and children not only get a healthy meal to start the day but dance classes and exercise to get their blood pumping and to get them ready for the day and ready to learn. They are breaking the cycle of poverty, which we have seen hold back too many children in our constituencies.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Does the Minister agree that we do not end dependency and bring children out of poverty by driving their parents out of work? Hundreds of thousands more people are unemployed because of the policies that the Minister’s party has pursued. Does she acknowledge that that is the case?

[Anna Turley]

The hon. Gentleman was in Parliament when 2,300 jobs in the steel industry were lost overnight in my constituency. We had to deal with the consequences of that. His party know all about putting people out of work. This is about breaking the cycle. Three quarters of the children growing up in poverty are in working households. The economy that we saw develop under the Conservative Government was one where work just did not pay. People were working all the hours and shifts they could, and they still were not able to feed their families. That is why we are supporting parents in getting back to work and getting their children happy, healthy and fed in school.

I also want to support the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Amanda Martin) about the veterans strategy. There are 9,000 veterans in Portsmouth who have benefited from the hard-working campaigning she has done in her constituency. We have seen a big uplift in defence spending, and that is something I am deeply proud of in this country. We face a deeply insecure world at the moment. We have a Prime Minister who is rebuilding Britain’s standing on the global stage and is putting defence spending at the heart of economic regeneration in constituencies like ours.

I could go on about manifesto pledges that have been met, such as banning trail hunting, ending hereditary peers, and the Football Governance Act 2025 giving fans a real voice in their football clubs. We promised 2 million more NHS appointments; we have delivered 5 million more already. We have halved the number of asylum hotels. There have been 1 million potholes fixed. My hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Jim Dickson) has campaigned very hard about roads and potholes in his constituency.

We are supporting renters by abolishing no-fault evictions. We have established Great British Energy to drive our energy renewal in this country. We have delivered pension justice for mineworkers. In my constituency, thanks to Cleveland police, from May we are going to see a named police officer in every ward. That is 3,000 more police already. That is a lot done, but as I think my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) described it, these are downpayments on progress. This is just the beginning. With every month, more and more people will start to feel the benefit of the Labour Government in their pockets, and I am proud to have delivered that.

The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake) talked about the importance of stability for small business. He is absolutely right, and calling for another general election completely flies in the face of that. Conservative Members may have enjoyed the chaos and upheaval of the last Government, where we had four elections and a referendum in four years. I was here; I witnessed it all. That had a disastrous effect. The public voted to end the chaos, and they want us to get on with governing the country and fixing the mess that the last Government left behind. That takes time and patience, but this Labour Government are committed to delivering on the change that the country voted for in the last general election.

As I have set out, there are manifesto pledges that have been met, and there are manifesto pledges that are being delivered. I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friends for highlighting so many of the positive impacts that this Government are having on the lives of their constituents. We will continue to take difficult and strong decisions in the national interest, after 14 years of failed Conservative Government. We saw a merry-go-round of failed Prime Ministers who slashed our public services, crashed our economy and frayed the social fabric of our country. Their Governments cut the NHS year after year and betrayed the promises they made to their country. As the Prime Minister said in his new year message, this is the year the country will “turn a corner” along the path of national renewal.

We will not shy away from making the big calls that are right for our country’s future. We are proud of the progress so far. We know that people will feel the change this year in their pay packets and on the streets. We are proud to stand on our record at the next general election and we look forward to it. In the meantime, we will get on with delivering the change that the public voted for—the change they expect from a Labour Government—and building a fairer, more hopeful and better Britain.

19:18

[John Lamont]

I reassure colleagues that I will not detain them for too much longer. I have to start by thanking the over 1 million people across the UK who signed this important petition, as well as all right hon. and hon. Members who participated in the debate. Let us be in no doubt; those 1 million people feel very strongly about this issue and the failure of the Government. I particularly thank my Conservative colleagues—my hon. Friends the Members for West Worcestershire (Dame Harriett Baldwin), for Keighley and Ilkley (Robbie Moore), for Stockton West (Matt Vickers) and for Thirsk and Malton (Kevin Hollinrake)—for their excellent speeches that spoke to the nub of our constituents’ concerns.

As for the Labour MPs who bothered to turn up to defend their Government’s record, I do not know what sweeties they were being offered to come along tonight. I will give the hon. Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) his dues; he got the tone just right, recognising that people out there have big concerns about what is going on with not just this Government but politics generally. While I think he spoke to those concerns, I do not know what he would say to the extra 15% of young people in his constituency who are currently without work because of his Government’s policies. As he will know, youth unemployment is up across the whole United Kingdom, and 15% in his seat.

I am afraid that the hon. Member for Southport (Patrick Hurley) got the tone completely wrong and misjudged the moment. I look forward to him bumping into one of his constituents who might have signed the petition this coming weekend, as we will all be out and about in our constituencies.

Many Labour Members spoke about how this is a listening Government, which is why they have done so many U-turns. However, I am afraid that does not really wash; it forgets the worry, uncertainty and fear that come while these policies are being implemented. The family farm tax is one such example, and the winter fuel payment is another. Many pubs and other businesses are terrified and unsure about how they are going to pay the higher rates and taxes. Yes, the U-turn may come eventually, but if there are months and months, or weeks and weeks, when people face the prospect of that change, that causes a lot of anxiety. Sadly, many farmers—I suspect this is why the Prime Minister ultimately had to intervene—are no longer here to see the benefit of the U-turn.

The reality is that taxes have gone up, despite the Prime Minister saying that they would not before the election. The benefits bill is going up more, and hard-working people are having to pay for it, again despite what the Prime Minister said before the election. There is a real sense of betrayal out there. I think that Labour Members, in the deepest part of their souls, also understand that, despite what they have said today. I am very grateful to everybody who has participated, and I hope that the 1 million people who signed the petition—as well as the 3 million or 4 million who have signed other petitions on this issue—feel that they have had their voices heard today.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 727309 relating to a general election.

19:21

Sitting adjourned.