Next General Election

Ellie Reeves Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Ellie Reeves (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

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.