Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask His Majesty's Government how many days before a general election does an employee who has been selected as a parliamentary candidate have to resign from their job when they are working for (1) the NHS, (2) a local authority, and (3) the Civil Service.

NHS England employees are not subject to any requirements to resign due to parliamentary candidacy.

Health is devolved in Scotland and Wales – restrictions relating to parliamentary candidacy on employees of NHS Scotland and NHS Wales are a matter for the Scottish and Welsh governments.

A number of specified local authority positions are designated as ‘politically restricted’. Holders of such posts are required to resign before announcing their candidacy for Parliament. Individual local authorities have the flexibility to designate additional positions as ‘politically restricted’. Furthermore, they may also choose to include restrictions relating to parliamentary candidacy in their employment contracts with any of their employees.

Civil Servants are disqualified from holding the office of MP. Parliamentary candidates must confirm they are not disqualified from holding the office when completing their consent to nomination form, and therefore cannot be employed in the Civil Service at this point. Furthermore, Civil Servants who are categorised as belonging to politically restricted or politically intermediate groups must resign before being adopted as a prospective candidate by a political party.