Call for General Election

Harriett Baldwin Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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.