PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Next General Election - 29 January 2024 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 641904 relating to the next general election.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. I am pleased to introduce the petition and give voice to its hundreds of thousands of petitioners, as well as pretty much everybody I have spoken to recently regarding the current state of this country. The petition calls for an immediate general election in the light of the chaos of the current Government. It is clear in its demand:

“The Prime Minister should call an immediate general election to allow the British public to have their say on how we are governed, we should not be made to wait until January 2025”.

It goes on:

“Consistent opinion polling has shown the British public have lost confidence in the current government. The NHS is in crisis, the asylum system is broken, there are delays at the ports, and institutions are failing. The British people should be given a say on what to do next.”

I pay tribute to David Nash, who started the petition. More than 286,000 people have signed it—383 of them my constituents in Gower—and the number is climbing as we speak. That demonstrates the strength of feeling of dissatisfaction and dismay at the Government and the turmoil that we find ourselves in in this country. That dismay is not new. Members will be aware that this is not the first petition or debate of its kind. In October 2022, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) opened a discussion in this hall on a similar petition, which received almost 1 million signatures. The fact that this is the second debate on an immediate general election in less than 18 months is about as strong an indicator as one can get of how much the governing party have lost the respect of the British people.

Let us remind ourselves of the situation surrounding the previous debate. Inflation had reached a 41% high; families were confronting a cost of living crisis and unaffordable energy bills; and there were record backlogs in our NHS. After becoming the fourth Conservative Prime Minister in six years, solely on votes from Conservative party members whose backing represented just 0.17% of all voters, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) delivered a mini Budget that caused complete market turmoil and led to further havoc with U-turns, reversals and the sacking of the then Chancellor.

Fast forward to now and the only thing that has changed is the Government’s figurehead. Despite there being a new Prime Minister and promises of a new direction, chaos persists and continues to govern as matters get even worse for the country. That fact is glaringly obvious to just about everyone other than the Prime Minister, who is so out of touch that he continues to tell the public how good they have got it as they feel the country burning around them everywhere they turn.

British people continue to pay the price of the Conservatives’ catastrophic mini Budget, delivered with absolutely no mandate from the British people. It triggered an economic meltdown and saw the pound plummet to its lowest level against the dollar in 37 years. At the time, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research said that the uncertainty caused by the fiscal event was directly pushing up longer-term borrowing costs, and it was right. Interest rates soared and families were forced to cope with higher mortgages, with the average mortgage up £240 a month. That is on top of the cost of living crisis, which continues to exert enormous pressure on families as they face higher food and energy bills.

The mini Budget shows the catastrophic consequences of behaving recklessly with the economy, but the extent of the Conservative Government’s economic damage goes beyond that one disastrous event. The Government have presided over a period of national decline. We have had 11 growth plans from seven Chancellors, yet economic growth is stagnant. Under the Conservative Government, GDP growth has averaged 1.5% per year. This year we are forecast to be the slowest growing economy in the whole of the G7. National debt is at the highest level since the 1960s and has more than doubled since 2010.

Experts predict this will be the biggest tax-raising Parliament on record. There have been 25 Tory tax rises since the last election. Even after this month’s tax changes, the average household is still set to be up to £1,200 worse off. Fourteen years of economic failure is having a devastating impact on the people of this country. With taxes eating into wages, mortgages rising, interest rates and inflation high, and prices in shops still going up, too many families are struggling to make ends meet.

This Parliament is on track to be the first in modern history in which living standards in this country have contracted. Household income growth is down by 3.1%. A report published just last week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that 14.4 million people were in poverty in 2021-22. That is 22% of people in the United Kingdom—let that number sink in. That included 8.1 million working-age adults, 4.2 million children and 2.1 million pensioners. That is completely unacceptable. The economic damage caused by this Government is leaving British people worse off, and it is most acutely felt by the most vulnerable in our society. Increasing numbers of children and pensioners reside in poverty, as this Government preside with no public mandate or democratic accountability for the policies they seek to pursue.

Although we have the biggest tax burden since the second world war, public services are crumbling. Never before have a British Government asked their people to pay so much for so little. Schools with reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete—RAAC—are literally falling down, and a headteachers’ union warned just last week that parents are taking their children out of those schools as a result. The RAAC failure is just one issue affecting schools in England. According to a National Audit Office report last year, 700,000 children are being taught in unsafe or ageing buildings.

The NHS is in crisis after more than a decade of Government mismanagement. With waiting lists totalling over 7.6 million, one in seven people in England are on NHS waiting lists—more than ever before. These people have put their lives on hold while they wait in pain and discomfort for months or even years. The Conservative Government cut 2,000 GPs, and now patients find it impossible to get an appointment. Patients are waiting dangerously long for ambulances, and it is common for ambulances to queue outside hospitals for hours on end to hand over patients. The latest analysis of NHS England figures revealed that 420,000 patients had to wait 12 hours or more in A&E last year—a 20% increase on 2022. I know that sounds like a dystopian nightmare but, alarmingly, it is the reality of the current situation. Healthcare should be available for all who require it, but 14 years of Conservative failure means that people can no longer trust that the NHS will be there for them in their hour of need.

I could go on about how this Government have broken the asylum system, failed to clear the asylum backlog or end asylum hotel use, and spent £400 million of public money on a discredited, unworkable and immoral Rwanda plan without sending a single asylum seeker there. I could expand on how, despite their promises about being tough on crime, the Government are failing on law and order, with over 90% of crimes going unsolved, only 3.9% of sexual offences—of which 2.4% are rapes—resulting in a charge or summons, and record high fatal stabbings, as knife crime has soared 77% since 2015. I will leave those things just to a mention as I am conscious of the time that I have already spent outlining the Government’s failures.

All the Conservative Government have to show for themselves is complete and utter chaos. They have overseen the degradation of standards in public life. Six by-elections were held last year, with a further two expected next month. After five Prime Ministers and seven Chancellors, the public are worse off. Granted, we live in a parliamentary democracy and it is not the first time that a Prime Minister has changed in the middle of a Parliament, but we are now on our third Prime Minister since the general election in 2019. Two of those were elected by Conservative MPs and members, rather than the electorate. That is discouraging for the British people, who have had no say in the direction of their governance or who their Prime Minister is.

In the debate on a similar petition back in October 2022, concerns were rightly raised about the lack of a mandate of the then Prime Minister, who was elected solely by Conservative party members. That Member then went on to claim the title of the shortest-serving Prime Minister this country has ever seen, after triggering an enormous economic crisis, so I think we can say that those concerns were definitely well founded. But our current Prime Minister has even less of a mandate to govern. He failed his own party’s leadership contest and is now failing to serve the interests of the public—indeed, a recent YouGov poll puts the Government’s disapproval rating at 66%. Perhaps he might be more successful at engaging the public elsewhere: if he does choose to call an immediate general election, he will have plenty of time to prepare for a starring role in “I’m a Celebrity”.

It is no wonder that the Prime Minister cannot command the confidence of his country, given his inability to secure the assurances of his own party. I am a teacher myself, and he is like a supply teacher in charge of an unruly class. “Stand up and fight”—that phrase was repeated by the Leader of the House 19 times in a speech to the Tory conference, with 12 of those in quick succession. She did not mean for her party’s MPs to fight each other. The petition’s signatories are expressing their anger at a governing party at war with itself and more focused on its in-fighting and psychodrama than meaningfully tackling the multiple crises that they lurch this country to and from.

The recent developments regarding steel are a prime example. The future of Port Talbot steelworks is integral to communities across south Wales, and so to many of my constituents. The Conservative Government spent half a billion pounds of taxpayers’ money, only to make thousands redundant and leave us unable to make our own primary steel. They continue to refuse to engage with the First Minister of Wales to discuss the matter, demonstrating nothing but callous indifference to the thousands of workers—my constituents included—whose livelihoods are at stake thanks to this Government’s incompetence. Let us not forget the bigger picture: the lives and livelihoods of those who work in a supply chain and the local economy—even those who work on the tugboats bringing the ships into port—are affected.

For too many people, it can be hard to remember a time when Government politicians could be trusted to act in the public’s interests and to a standard expected in public life. Indeed, in these unprecedented times, the only thing that seems certain is the persistence of chaos from our governing party. The country is fed up and deserves better than this mayhem with no mandate. I remember why I got into politics—as a single mother and a schoolteacher at the time of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition in 2010, it hit me then—but it is no wonder that after being ignored for 14 years our public servants feel how they feel today. The petitioners’ ask is clear: to be given the opportunity to have their say on how they want this country to be governed.

The legislation is clear that the current Parliament must be dissolved no later than five years after it first met, which places the deadline for dissolution on 17 December 2024. Any decision to dissolve sooner and call an early election is at the discretion of the Prime Minister. Failing that, Government Members can join Opposition Members to put things right. The Prime Minister has already indicated a willingness to hold an early general election by ruling out an election in January 2025. Having outlined the current state of this country, it can be hard to imagine how things could possibly get any worse. Sound familiar? We have been here before, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the longer the Government delay giving people their say, the more damage their incompetence will inflict on this country.

Deltapoll polling for The Mirror at the beginning of January found that half of the public, and even 38% of Conservative voters, say they want an election by the end of the spring. Only 12% like the sound of the Prime Minister’s working assumption of an election in the second half of the year. Members of Parliament have a duty to the public to govern in the national interest. In that vein, will the Minister say when the public will have a chance to decide who should lead us going forward? Will the Government act in line with the interests of the British people, and their own voters, and call for an immediate general election? Whichever Government are elected, they will at least have the support of the public and the mandate to govern.

The Prime Minister is attempting to inspire the Tory party faithful by pitching himself as a change candidate. His party has been in power for 14 years, and it is true that in that time it has faced some very difficult external factors, including the pandemic and Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. However, this Government have only mishandled their responses to those factors, and they have consistently made political choices, with the lack of a clear mandate, that have made things so much worse. They have no right to claim that they have the solutions to the problems they created themselves. The petition calls on the Government to put an end to the chaos and uncertainty by giving the people their say. It is time for the Government to put the national interests first.

I was not expecting to be called quite so early—I thought many more people would be keen to speak in this debate. Thank you for chairing it, Mr Dowd, and I thank the Petitions Committee—particularly the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi), who led the debate masterfully and covered a huge number of issues and the reasons why petitioners signed the petition.

I first got involved in party politics and joined the SNP in 2001. When we were out canvassing and campaigning, it was not unusual for us to knock on doors and for people to say, “I’m not sure who I’m voting for.” In some circumstances, people were inevitably voting Tory, but they were too shy to tell us because they were embarrassed about it. That was quite a common thing back then—it was quite common for a significant number of years. We then had the Lib Dem-Tory coalition, and there was a bit more optimism around the Conservatives and people were actually willing to admit to us that they were voting Conservative. Well, that has disappeared again. Believe it or not, there are some people in Aberdeen North who vote Conservative—in fact, the Conservatives came second there in the last election. We have all these people who are pretty definitely going to vote Conservative, but they are now too embarrassed to say it, because they are looking at the situation down here in Westminster and they are unwilling to admit that that is the party they are going to vote for.

There are so many issues that it is difficult to pack them all into a short speech, but I will try to cover a few. First, on inflation and household bills, which the hon. Member for Gower covered masterfully, this UK Government have failed to do enough. They stand up and talk about the fact that inflation has dropped, but prices are still going up. We still have inflation. Potatoes, pasta, rice—the most basic foodstuffs, which people cannot avoid buying—have increased massively in price. We cannot avoid buying some of those essentials, and their prices continue to increase. I do not know how often you buy butter or margarine, Mr Dowd, but it is twice the price that it was just a couple of short years ago. Again, that is a staple. People need fats in their diet. We need all sorts of different foods in our diet. If the prices keep going up—and they are, because inflation continues to go up—then things get even worse and people can no longer afford to buy things. That is without the energy prices that people are now paying, and the UK Government’s refusal to provide another energy rebate despite the fact that they know that folk cannot afford to live right now.

I have been in elected politics since 2007 and I have never seen less optimism. Before, when people came to us because they were struggling and had money problems, we could quite often say, “Are you claiming everything that you’re supposed to be claiming?” We could give them advice and give them options. Now, because people are already claiming everything they are entitled to, the only option we can give them is food banks. How have we reached the point in 2024 when the only ray of sunlight for so many families is the fact that they can get a food parcel every so often? It is absolutely unconscionable that we are in this situation, and it is because of the choices being made by the Conservative Government. It just is the case that they could make different choices, which would allow people to eat, heat their homes and feed their children better.

The Government need to reassess social security and ensure that it is enough to live on, because at the moment it is not. The augmentation of universal credit for those on the lowest wages still does not give them enough money to live on, and the UK Government’s pretendy living wage is not enough to live on either. People are working all the hours they can and claiming everything they possibly can—they might be disabled and unable to work—yet they still do not have enough money to live. It is no wonder that people are completely and totally fed up.

Significant parts of the public sector are devolved in Scotland, including the NHS. However, if the UK Government continue to squeeze the public sector by giving it less and less money, and if they continue to privatise parts of the NHS, then, because of the Barnett formula, that will have a significant impact on Scotland’s budget. The Scottish Government cannot borrow in the way that the UK Government can, and they have to deliver a balanced budget every year, yet they are being constrained by choices that are not our own, because of the decision-making processes in Westminster. All those decisions to cut public services in England and Wales, or in England or in the UK as a whole, have a knock-on impact on Scotland’s budgets, and on Wales and Northern Ireland as well.

It is ridiculous that the public sector is being so squeezed that it is struggling to afford to provide even basic services, and neither the NHS nor public sector workloads are helped by the UK Government’s immigration decisions. It is more difficult than ever to get people to work in care, for example, because of the changes being made to immigration. After London, Aberdeen is the city with the highest percentage of people born outside the UK. We have a massive immigrant population in Aberdeen, and we love that; it is brilliant. We have an immensely multicultural, diverse city—I was at a Hindu event on Saturday night. Aberdeen is vibrant because of that, but it is becoming increasingly difficult because of the UK Government’s ideological opposition to immigration.

People in my constituency would rather have care workers to look after them than have immigration stamped out. In Aberdeen, we have got hotels run by Mears that are full of asylum seekers who the UK Government do not allow to work. I mean, for goodness’ sake, allow people to work and contribute to the economy and the society they are living in. It is better for everybody, if they have got an asylum claim in, if they are allowed to work and contribute—if they are allowed to integrate, become part of the community and provide support, and particularly care for our older people.

The other thing that has happened in relation to democracy and trust is that each of the significant number of Conservative Prime Ministers that we have had, one after the other—we could almost say that it might be a ploy—has been able to put a whole bunch of people in the House of Lords and thereby unbalance it even more. If we have five Conservative Prime Ministers in eight years—and who knows how many there might have been by the end of this year—then we get tranches of people sitting in the House of Lords with a Conservative hat on.

Can the hon. Member think of another time when the governing party changed Prime Minister twice during a Parliament without going to the country, because I cannot?

No, I cannot think of such a time either, and it is really shocking that we are in this situation, especially because, as the hon. Member for Gower laid out, the current Prime Minister was not elected by anyone apart from the people in his constituency. He was not even elected by the Conservatives; they did not want him, but they ended up with him as their second choice. The people have not had their say. They have not had the opportunity to say, “Yes, we’re happy with this situation. We’re happy with the former Prime Minister crashing the economy and our mortgage rates going through the roof and the UK refusing to cancel VAT on those mortgage rates.” They have not had the opportunity to say that. I think that they would say, “We’re deeply unhappy and pessimistic about the future. We don’t see that there is a ray of sunshine here, because the system continues to be broken.”

In the last few years, this UK Government have done what they can to erode democracy. They have done what they can to ensure that it is more difficult for people to vote, including introducing voter ID, which we in Scotland vehemently oppose. Actually, if we look at it, we see that it is not the case that there is voter fraud. The requirement for voter ID just means that people who are less privileged and more disadvantaged are less likely to be able to take part in democracy, which suits some Conservatives down to the ground. It is completely shocking that we are in this situation.

I will just mention a couple of other things. Regarding climate change and a just transition, energy prices are going up. The UK Government are putting through the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill to ensure that there is more licensing of oil and gas fields, which will make absolutely no difference to the prices that people pay for their energy. What it will make a difference to is the profits of those energy companies—that is where it will make a positive difference. Those companies will have higher profits if they are able to carry out more exploration and have more fields licensed as a result of those explorations. It takes something like 16 years for a field to come through, so licensing more today will not make any difference to the prices that my constituents are paying for their energy.

The Government are doing these things, making these decisions and making statements about climate change, for example about electric cars, in the face of ever-increasing extreme weather events and ever-increasing climate change. The world is not meeting its climate change targets, and if we ask young people what they are concerned about, we find that it is climate change. They are particularly concerned that our political leaders are refusing to concede that climate change is the most important issue and needs to be tackled. The UK Government need to lead from the front but they are absolutely failing to do so. They should be supporting renewable energy—energies of the future—rather than pouring more time and energy into increasing the amount of fossil fuels that we are getting out of the sea.

As for EU membership, we were dragged out of the EU against the will of the people of Scotland, despite being explicitly promised during the Scottish independence referendum that the way to stay part of the EU was to remain part of the UK. So many people in Scotland voted no in the Scottish independence referendum because they felt so strongly about the EU and believed what Better Together campaigners were telling them. Then, immediately after the 2019 general election, we were taken out of the EU, despite every single constituency in Scotland—every single area in Scotland—voting to remain in the EU. We have now left the EU, and that has had a significant negative impact. There has been a ratcheting impact on inflation, for example; leaving the EU has meant that we are more negatively impacted by those issues. The Minister will no doubt say that that is entirely because of global factors, but it is just not; it has been exacerbated extremely by Brexit.

The solution, as put forward in the petition, is to have a general election and allow people to have their say. The reality for people in Scotland is that we have a lifeboat, which we want to take to get us out of here. We have been asking for an independence referendum. We have been making it clear that we are utterly fed up with the Westminster system and the decisions that are being taken down here—even things like the fact that the timing of the general election is entirely in the hands of the Prime Minister, whereas the timing of elections in Scotland is set by statute. They happen on a regular basis—every four or five years. There was a change that needed to take place to realign elections, but they take place on a four-year cycle.

It is grim that we end up in this situation and the UK Government can just say, “No, we don’t want to let them have an independence referendum. It doesn’t matter how many people in Scotland want independence; it’s up to us. We are going to make those decisions on behalf of the people of Scotland,” just as they are making so many other decisions on behalf of the people of Scotland. But the decisions that they are making about immigration, human rights and climate change are not being made in the name of the people of Scotland. We need the chance to take that lifeboat to get out of here so that we can make our own decisions—the right decisions for the people who live and work in Scotland—rather having decisions made by the Westminster Government, whoever it is that they are making those decisions for, because they certainly are not making them for the benefit of the general population.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Dowd. The contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) and the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) set out the real sense across the UK that it is time for change. In my constituency alone, 768 people have signed the petition we are debating.

People do not have to follow politics closely to see that this is a withering Government at the end of their days. The sooner the public can have their say, the better. Yet our unelected Prime Minister is too scared to commit to a date for the election. He is clinging on to power, hoping things will get better, but the writing is on the wall and his party knows it. Just look at the events of the last three weeks. We have seen a Tory MP resigning over the party’s direction and another senior Tory MP calling on the Prime Minister to stand down, and now we learn that there is a group of ex-advisers, Tory donors and rebel MPs in the shadows trying to topple him. No doubt the leadership campaign domain names are already quietly being purchased: MoveOverForMordaunt.org,BelieveInBadenoch.co.uk and BowDownTo Braverman.com. But no matter who the leader is, the one thing these Tories have in common is that it is party first, country second.

For years now, our politics has been held hostage by the factionalism inside the Conservative party. This chaos is unsustainable and we can no longer afford it. For once, the Conservatives should put the country first and call an election, because people are crying out for change. The mandate for this is clear. Even the Prime Minister knows it. It explains his inability to stick to a strategy as he attempts to match the public mood. This time last year, he was branding himself as Mr Competent. He was all about delivery. Remember the five pledges? Well, the only one he delivered on was the only one that was not actually in his control, so at conference he switched to being Mr Change, correctly putting forward the argument that the country needs change, but incorrectly —and staggeringly—putting forward his answer: five more years of the Conservatives. And then what did Mr Change go and do? He hired a former Prime Minister as his Foreign Secretary. With the Mr Change narrative not sticking, what has he now settled on? Mr Continuity: “Stick with me, because it is better the devil you know.” Well, he had better call an election soon, because at this rate he is going to run out of new Mr Men to choose from.

Despite the Prime Minister trying to say the answer to the question of change is another five years of the Conservatives, we will not be fooled. Just look at the last 14 years: failure on the economy, on the NHS and on tackling crime. None of that would change with a fifth Conservative term. The Conservatives have no right to complain that they have the solutions to the problems they created. Remember that the Conservatives chose, through ideology, to crash the economy with their mini Budget. Families up and down the country are still paying the price through increased mortgages and rents. As we enter the election year, the Conservatives may masquerade as tax cutters by reducing national insurance, but this is the biggest tax-raising Parliament in living memory. For every 10p by which they have increased working people’s taxes, their tax gimmick gives only 2p back. The average family is set to be £1,200 a year worse off under the Prime Minister’s tax plan, at the very moment that we are also living through a Tory cost of living crisis. We can look far and wide, but they have no plan for the economy.

The chaos does not end there. The Conservatives have also pushed our NHS on to its knees. They have wasted £3 billion on a top-down reorganisation, instead of investing in the equipment and technology that a modern health service requires. Millions of patients have been waiting two weeks or more for a GP appointment, but is that really a surprise, given that GP numbers have been cut by 2,000? Overall, across the NHS, waiting lists have hit record levels, yet the Government throw their hands up and say it is not their fault. It is a simple equation: the longer the Conservatives are in government, the longer patients wait. And sadly, the longer they are in power, the more political chaos we experience. Since 2015, we have had five Prime Ministers, seven Chancellors and 13 Housing Ministers. Government cannot run effectively with that kind of churn. Imagine a financial adviser trying to get someone to invest in a business that had that kind of turnover in its leadership. They would run a mile.

That is not even taking into account the misconduct and sleaze: £3.5 billion-worth of covid contracts awarded to Tory-linked firms, Tory MPs facing accusations of cash for access and favours, and of course partygate, which shows as clearly as possible that, with the Conservatives, it is one rule for them and another for the rest of the country. They have fundamentally broken the trust the public should be able to have in their leaders.

Indeed, while the economy flatlines, the only thing that continues to grow—aside from NHS waiting lists—is the number of factions of Conservative MPs. They have the New Conservatives, the No Turning Back group, the Conservative Growth Group, the European Research Group, the Northern Research Group and—wait for it—the Common Sense Group. Then, just last week, we saw the launch of the Popular Conservatism group, led by a former leader who was so popular that they were outlasted by a lettuce. That splintering is emblematic of a failed political force. None of them can agree on the direction of their party, let alone the direction of our country. It is becoming clearer and clearer that the Tories are not governing for the country. They are not even pretending to fight for the British people. It is all about their party; it is all about a game for power.

Meanwhile, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) has changed the Labour party. He has put it back in the service of working people: a party that is proud, does not take its support for granted and will always put the country first. It is a party that has the direction and hunger to actually effect change. That is captured in our long-term plan for the country—a plan to turn the page on the last 14 years and change the country for the better.

We need a mission-driven Government who can deliver a decade of national renewal, financial stability and strong fiscal rules so that we never have a repeat of the disastrous Tory mini Budget. We will build 1.5 million more homes over the next Parliament, with first-time buyers given first dibs. We will get the NHS back on its feet, and deliver 2 million more operations and NHS procedures to cut waiting lists. We will deliver 700,000 new dental appointments and take back our streets from gangs, drug dealers and fly-tippers, with stronger policing and guaranteed patrols in town centres. We will provide opportunity for every child through free breakfast clubs in every primary school, more specialist teachers, and better training and apprenticeships, so that every young person is ready for work and ready for life. We will make work pay through our new deal for working people, banning zero-hours contracts and outlawing fire and rehire. That is what a serious, united party can deliver.

Our country is crying out for change after the last 14 years of chaos. In just 94 days, on 2 May, we will have local and mayoral elections. Throughout the country, voters will be going to the polls for local councils and nine combined authority mayors. Thousands of candidates of all persuasions will be putting themselves forward so that voters can give their verdict. They should all be commended, and the winners will have a mandate. That is more than the Prime Minister currently has, which is why he should call a general election. No one voted for the third Tory Prime Minister of this Parliament—not even his own party. He has no mandate, which is why he has no authority and why the Tory soap opera continues. He should have gone to the country when he became Prime Minister, but he denied the public their say. Bottling it again would be to hold the country in contempt, condemning us to more of this unnecessary and counterproductive Tory in-fighting.

We need to have our say on the last 14 years. Do we want another five years like the last, with chaos, decline and failure, or do we want real change and national renewal with a mission-driven Labour party? This is the question when the election comes. The Government should call a general election now, so that people can have their say.

I can see that it is going to be a long year. We will have plenty of time over the next few months to rehearse all the points put across by Opposition Members, and no doubt some of the points that I will put across from the Government. I thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Dowd, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on moving the motion on behalf of the signatories to the e-petition, which calls for an immediate general election.

I am grateful for the opportunity to respond on behalf of the Government, but I am sorry to have to tell the hon. Lady that the requisite authority has not been delegated to me at this time and I am unable to grant her wish for an immediate election. In the absence of such powers, I can refer her to what the Prime Minister has already said—that he is expecting a general election in the second half of 2024, so it could be as soon as five months away. The hon. Lady will be aware that the authority rests with the Prime Minister and the King, but we will have an election in 2024.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) asked for a ray of sunshine, and here I am. There are extraordinary stories to be told from the past 14 years. There are better state schools, as judged by PISA, the programme for international student assessment. We are doing better in international rankings than ever before, thanks to the reforms and investment that we have made. There are better apprenticeships, helping more young people to earn while they learn and move into work. We have the best universities in Europe, sought after by many; record employment, underpinned by an improved welfare system in the form of universal credit; more free childcare than ever before; a national living wage; same-sex marriage; two new aircraft carriers; and the fastest decarbonisation of any major economy. We appreciate that we still have further to go, but emissions are down by more than 50% since their peak in the ’70s.

Brexit has been delivered, with global free trade deals, notably an enormously important one with the Pacific. We have more money than ever before in the NHS; record numbers of doctors and nurses; neighbourhood crime down by 50%; and 2.5 million homes. Not only have we had better growth since 2010 than Germany, France, Italy and Spain, but the International Monetary Fund expects the UK to have better growth than Germany, France, Italy and Japan in the medium term. Last year, the UK overtook France as the eighth largest manufacturing nation on earth.

These are all the result of choices. They are all the result of the decisions taken by Conservative Governments since 2010. Have this Conservative Government achieved that because we were handed a golden legacy by the previous Labour Government? Not a bit of it. When we took over, the economy was in the sewer. Since that time, we have managed to deal with the largest public health crisis in a century, the largest war in Europe since 1945, the biggest energy crisis since the 1970s and the highest inflation since the 1980s—and still the projections for our country going forward are good, and confidence in our nation’s economy among our international partners remains high.

I look forward to taking these arguments and more to the electorate in the months ahead, and I look forward to rehearsing the back and forth with hon. Members in the Chamber and beyond.

I thank hon. Members who have participated in the debate. I was quite surprised that we did not have a higher turnout, because the demand for a general election is so great. I understand that the Minister is not the Prime Minister, which is a great shame, because we need answers now. As a member of the Opposition party, I look forward to the next general election, as I am sure many others do.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered e-petition 641904 relating to the next general election.