Call for General Election
Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Peter Prinsley(1 week, 4 days ago)
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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.