General Election

Wendy Morton Excerpts

Monday 6th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman, my former colleague from the Scottish Parliament. I will touch on that issue shortly. I also invite him to perhaps surmise that petitions are dealt with rather better in this place than in that other place where we once served, but we will leave that aside for the moment.

I will put it very simply: an election cannot be called as a result of a petition. It is a fact that on 4 July, the Labour party won a majority, and they will remain in office for the duration of their term or until the Prime Minister seeks permission from the sovereign to dissolve Parliament at a time of his choosing. That is the way we do things in this country. Furthermore, it is absolutely intrinsic to the proper function of democracy to respect and uphold the democratic mandate that the current Government hold from the British public. I assert that that mandate cannot be overturned by this or any future petition; that would fundamentally undermine the existing institutional constitutional mechanisms that empower the public. The British people had their say in July. They chose the current Government and we must continue to honour that choice. I believe that is a fundamental principle of the way we do things in this country.

[Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman touched on the word “mandate”. I think most people would accept and acknowledge that the Government were elected on a mandate for change, but would he agree that one of the reasons why there is so much traction and engagement with this petition, including in my constituency, is that people feel so let down and disappointed? We have seen so many manifesto promises broken already.

[Jamie Stone]

I accept the point, but I remind the right hon. Lady that I am a servant of the House and have to be an impartial chairman in this matter. I think we all know that that is the way this place works. Tempting though it might be for me to say something, it would be very wrong, but I may touch on some things like that in due course.

It is the case, however, that the Government must respectfully acknowledge the frustration of those who signed the petition and do their utmost to understand the motivation of those good people. In response to the petition, the Cabinet Office reassured the public that it was committed to

“fixing the foundations, rebuilding Britain, and restoring public confidence in government.”

In particular, the Cabinet Office cited the “£22 billion black hole” as the reason for the very difficult decisions that have had to be made in the past and will be made in the future. None of them is easy and, in all fairness, we should recognise that.

In recent months we have witnessed widespread dissatisfaction with various policy decisions that the Government have chosen to make, and that has been touched on by hon. Members today. The decisions to cut winter fuel payments, terminate inheritance tax exemptions for farms, and increase national insurance contributions for employers are three that have proved controversial. That is the case in all our constituencies, including mine, regardless of the colour of the Member involved. We know that from the press comment.

I return to our guest here: the man who raised the petition, Mr Michael Westwood. He placed a specific emphasis on economic growth as a motivation for creating the petition, and made his dissatisfaction with the Government’s response clear. That is an example of the sort of dialogue that petitions should initiate. I learned something from my discussions with Mr Westwood; I think we can all learn from them. I very much hope that this debate will help the Government address some of the inadequacies that have been identified.

I think I speak for us all when I say that we all want to see an economy where large and small businesses can thrive and prosper. That is what drives the nation. We all want an NHS that is properly funded, so that everyone gets the care they need, and we want a society that has proper safeguards so that the most vulnerable are protected from all the horrors that might come their way, which we should stop as best we can. These are, however, huge ambitions. They are very proper and right ambitions that we should sign up to, but they will be expensive. They are not cheap, and allocating resources fairly will be a challenge for a Government of any colour.

May I be so bold as to suggest that we improve engagement still more? I hope that communication will improve in the months and years ahead of this debate and that the Government can also be involved in that sort of discussion and deliberation. The electorate must be reassured that all of us as their representatives, who are here at their behest, are willing to listen to their needs. I think that any Government would be wrong to assume that they act in a vacuum. Explanations will always be necessary in a democracy as long-standing and robust as ours—one that I believe is the envy of many other parts of the world.

We have a particularly well-attended debate today, which I find, as Chair of the Select Committee, immensely encouraging. I am sure we are going to hear some most interesting and thoughtful contributions. I will draw my remarks to a close, Mrs Harris, and listen with great interest to what follows.

--- Later in debate ---

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South and Walkden) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris. Petitions in our Parliament have often been used to discuss a particular issue of concern to people in the country; they are not normally used as a mechanism to hijack and play party politics.

In the last 14 years, we saw crisis after crisis caused by the ill-thought-out policies, plans and rank cronyism of the previous Government, but we engaged in the process and had debates. We did not commandeer a public petition to demand a new election; we opposed the Government and worked within the parliamentary ambit to do what was right. This petition has grown partly because of a lot of misinformation and partly because of foreign interference—[Laughter.] Members may laugh, but that happens to be correct.

When Labour formed the Government—

[Wendy Morton]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I want to make some points and then I will take interventions. When Labour got elected, the first thing we found was a £20 billion deficit—a big black hole that no one knew about. We therefore had to take the decision—[Interruption.] Members can try to shout and whatever else, but I am not giving up. Will whoever is making the noise let me speak, please? There was a £20 billion black hole, so the Government obviously had to make some policy in order to plug it. That meant raising winter fuel bills, introducing inheritance tax and raising national insurance contributions—things mentioned in the petition. We must recognise that if we are going to provide services and bring changes in the country, that requires financial expenditure, and no one knew about the £20 billion deficit.

When we took over, we found that our prisons were incredibly overcrowded. The previous Government said that they would find 20,000 prison places by the mid-2020s, but they created only 50. In our criminal justice system, victims have been waiting for trials to be heard in the Crown court—at least 73,000 trials—including serious cases. When the Conservatives were in power, we had about eight different Secretaries of State for Justice. It is therefore not surprising that our judicial system and prison system are in a complete mess at the moment.

In relation to the NHS, I remember that in 2010, when we left power, the time that people spent waiting in accident and emergency at a hospital was maybe a few hours; now, that time is eight or 10 hours. Getting an operation or seeing a doctor now takes years, as opposed to six months. Again, that is because the previous Government did nothing to deal with the issue, so we have had to deal with it. We have heard today’s statement by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and there will be a debate later about all the things that we want to bring into play to make our NHS work better, because people need that.

We are the party that came in and solved the doctors’ dispute, which had been going on for years and years. Why does that matter? Because it means that our health service will have good, decent provision and that some of the delays hopefully will be taken away. The Prime Minister today mentioned that we have plans to reduce waiting lists massively. These are the things that we are doing; the previous Government, which had 14 years, did nothing and left us with what we have.

We are the Government who have paid our teachers more, so that our children can be educated properly. We are the Government who have dealt with the issue of public transport and our drivers being on strikes. That is important, because we need to get the country going. Public transport is very important for the proper running of any country, and we need to have that. Just before Christmas, we also announced over £1 billion for people who are homeless and £1 billion or so for potholes.

The issue of regenerating the economy has been touched on. All these things will solve the problems of bad roads and help people who are homeless to be able to sleep warmly, but building roads also creates jobs and regenerates the economy. We have said that we will build more than 1.5 million houses. What will that do? It will regenerate our economy as well. Everybody is talking about how we can regenerate the economy, and the stuff that we are doing on green energy and renewables will also create loads of jobs and regenerate our economy—[Interruption.] I hear some Opposition Members sniggering and laughing. Well, do you know what, Mrs Harris? Some of them have been MPs for the last 14 years, as I have been, and they know the failures of their Government.

I can talk about only a few things in six minutes, but the Labour Government have been doing enough to ensure not only that our economy is regenerated but that many institutions are properly financed, especially our health service, which everyone uses. It is so important that we look after it. The Labour party created the NHS, and it is the party that will always look after and save the NHS.

--- Later in debate ---

[Imogen Walker (Hamilton and Clyde Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.

I have the privilege of speaking in this Chamber today because, six months ago, the country voted for change—the biggest change, in fact, that this Parliament has seen in generations. We know why people voted for change. It was because, for 14 years, the Conservatives have been taking the country down a road that has left everybody worse off: NHS waiting lists spiralling out of control; no grip on the prison crisis; no plan for the economy; and no control over the cost of living crisis.

We stood on a manifesto of setting that right. That is why the general election that we have just had reduced the Tories to the smallest number in their history. Ours was a message of hard work and of sorting out the mess they made that everyone could see. But for all their failures, I think one of the cruellest things that the last Government did was to take away hope and to take away the belief that things can be changed not by gimmicks or by slogans but by doing the work and doing the right thing, even when it is difficult.

[Wendy Morton]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Imogen Walker]

I am going to make some more progress.

I know the frustration that people feel after years of chaos and neglect by their Government—in the case of Scotland, by two Governments, as a matter of fact—but I would say to everyone who feels let down by 14 years of broken promises: what the last Government did, lurching from crisis to crisis or from drama to drama, is not the way to make people’s lives better. They dodged the difficult decisions, and we are not doing that.

It has been just six months since we were elected, and we have already increased funding to the NHS, protected the pensions triple lock, invested in housing and delivered the biggest settlement to Scotland in the history of devolution. We have also set a Budget that funded all that, while protecting the pay packets of working people. Our manifesto said that we would stabilise the economy and rebuild public services, and that is what we are doing. The job is far from finished, but we will get there.

I ask Opposition Members, what has happened to their party? The Tory party we once knew was the biggest winner in Britain’s electoral history, but its Members now sit here diminished and looking around—as they always do—for someone else to blame. But of course, blaming the voters is never the right thing to do. I am not going to criticise the people who signed this petition, because we all feel the frustration of the last decade and a half of people not being able to get what they need for themselves and their family.

[Wendy Morton]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Imogen Walker]

I am going to finish soon, so I will make progress.

When people have been let down so badly and for so long, they do not forget. They do not forget quickly—I understand that—but fixing this country is not a six-month job, and Conservative Members must be honest that it took them longer than that to get us into this mess. I know that people have had their hope trampled on, but better times lie ahead, and this Labour Government are here to see that we get there.