Call for General Election

Rupa Huq Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Westminster Hall

[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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[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.

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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.

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[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.