Rishi Sunak rules out 2 May general election as report shows Commons working hours have fallen to a 25-year low – UK politics live | Politics

James Heappey, the armed forces minister, has announced that he is standing down at the next election. He has been MP for Wells since 2015 and had a majority there at the last election of 9,991 over the Liberal Democrats. He is 43.

In a letter to his constituency party posted on X, he says a great deal has changed in his life in recent years and he has decided to pursue a different career.

According to a report by Larissa Brown in the Times, which has been confirmed by government sources, Heappey will also be standing down as a minister before the election. Brown says:

It is understood that [Rishi] Sunak offered Heappey the option of staying in post until the election but he asked to step down sooner to focus on his constituency and future employment.

His departure comes at a difficult time for the prime minister who was criticised over the decision to deny extra funding to the MoD in the budget despite increased threats and wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

Last night Brandon Lewis, the former Conservative party chair and former Northern Ireland secretary, also announced that he is standing down and Heappey’s announcement means 62 Tory MPs have now said they are leaving parliament. Philip Nye from the Institute for Government has a tally.

Ministers are expected to back a fresh bid to crack down on puppy smuggling after MPs urged the government to reveal how it will fulfil a series of promises to bolster animal welfare, PA Media reports. PA says:

Tory MP Selaine Saxby’s proposed legislation would ban dogs and cats under six months from being brought into the UK.

It would also prohibit the importation of heavily pregnant animals and those with mutilations, such as cropped ears or a docked tail.

The animal welfare (kept animals) bill is being debated this morning. The government is set to throw its support behind the measures, it is understood.

The proposals, which come in a private member’s bill, will also limit the number of pets a person can travel with.

It comes after the government came under pressure from Tory MPs following the decision to scrap its own planned legislation last May.

The bill had been expected to have cracked down on puppy smuggling, banned live animal exports for fattening and slaughter, and helped to tackle pet abduction and livestock worrying, among other changes.

Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt said last year her colleagues “should be reassured” that the government still plans to fulfil its pledges.

The Labour party has been predicting a May election for months and last night Pat McFadden, the party’s national campaign campaign coordinator, put out a statement saying that, despite Rishi Sunak saying there won’t be on on 2 May, Labour will keep preparing for one until it becomes technically impossible. He said:

After 14 years of Tory failure, the British public have the right to expect an election to be called by 26 March and held on 2 May.

Until the day to call it has passed, we are prepared for the election to take place on the usual day in the election cycle.

Rishi Sunak should stop squatting in Downing Street and give the country what it desperately needs – a chance for change with a Labour government. The prime minister needs to finally come clean with the public and name the date of the election now.

For an election to happen on 2 May, parliament would have to be dissolved on Tuesday 26 March.

Good morning. Rishi Sunak has ruled out calling a general election on 2 May. This is no great surprise to anyone working in Westminster (despite what the Labour party claims), but worth knowing anyway, particularly for journalists with holiday plans for April. Here is the clip.

Sunak does not have to call an election until January next year and in normal circumstances a prime minister could defend putting off polling day on the grounds the government still has plenty of legislation to pass.

But a report by Lucy Fisher in today’s Financial Times has killed that as an excuse. Fisher says the average amount of time the Commons spends sitting every working day is now at its lowest level for a quarter of a century. She says:

The average duration of a Commons sitting day in the current parliamentary session, which began in November, has been 7 hours and 9 minutes, a record low since New Labour came to power in 1997, the FT found …

On Tuesday last week the Commons adjourned at 3.53pm, while on one Monday earlier this month almost five hours were dedicated to an unfocused “general debate on farming”, critics pointed out …

Between 1997 and 2023 the average was 7 hours and 58 minutes — or 49 minutes longer than in the current session, the analysis showed. The peak was 9 hours and 15 minutes in the 1998-99 session of Tony Blair’s first administration.

The sitting hours figures do not capture all the work MPs do; most MPs spend a lot more than seven hours a day working, and almost no one spends all or most of their day in the chamber.

But if the government is passing a lot of legislation, the Commons will sit more. As Fisher points out, these figures are indicative of the fact that MPs have fewer bills to pass than in a normal parliamentary session.

Lucy Powell, Labour’s shadow Commons leader, told the FT the government was “out of steam” and “failing to deliver on important issues” such as renters reform and rail modernisation, “while making parliament clock off early day in, day out”. And the Liberal Democrats’ Wera Hobhouse told the FT the figures confirmed Sunak was presiding over “a lame-duck government”.

Here is the FT chart illustrating the figures.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: MPs started debating a private member’s bill from the Conservative MP Selaine Saxby that would ban puppy smuggling. Liz Truss is hoping that her private member’s bill, that would in effect ban social transitioning at school, will be debated. But it is third on the list for today, after Saxby’s and a bill from Labour’s Sarah Champion about public procurement, and so it may not be reached.

Morning: Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, are on a visit in the north-east of England.

10.30am: Richard Tice, the Reform UK leader, and Lee Anderson, his new MP, campaign in Ashfield.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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