Better to go before you're asked to leave
The Conservative Party set an early deadline for MPs to declare their candidacy for the next election, and flushed out some surprise departures
John Biffen, one of the most interesting but famously “semi-detached” of Thatcher’s cabinet ministers, said shortly before he stood down from the House of Commons in 1997 that he was leaving, although only 66 years old, because he wanted people to ask “Why is he going?” rather than “Why won’t he go?” It is a good motto for those who want to retain some self-respect through the mire of politics but it requires a very fine degree of judgement and self-awareness; that last quality is rare enough in politicians, perhaps for obvious reasons of self-defence.
News has been made these past few days because the Conservative Party machinery set current MPs an early deadline of 5 December to declare whether they intended to seek re-selection as parliamentary candidates at the next general election. As that contest could be held as late as January 2025, it might seem a premature measure, but it has certainly flushed out some who might have delayed their decision for months or even years. The media reaction has been somewhat overheated and flushed with excitement. The Daily Mirror gasped “All the Tory MPs stepping down as party fears election wipeout under Rishi Sunak” while The New Statesman asked with brown earnestly furrowed “Why are so many Conservative MPs standing down?”
Here’s the thing. It’s not that simple. As of yesterday, 14 Members of Parliament had indicated that they were not going to seek re-election. Fourteen, out of 357. By contrast, 12 Labour MPs out of 195 has made the same decision. Yes, but, goes the argument, some of those calling time on their career in the Commons are young! (Yes, true, one of them in under 30.) But is that really all that’s happening? Let’s have a look.
Several are Members who are reaching retirement age and whose careers are, for better or worse, winding down: Sir Mike Penning (Hemel Hempstead), Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) and Crispin Blunt (Reigate) have all had front bench, ministerial or senior committee roles, while Mark Pawsey (Rugby) may have been a lower-profile Member of Parliament but is now 65 and is certainly not looking forward to future preferment. That is no dishonour: any party needs people like him in their parliamentary group, solid division lobby fodder who will do some of the worthier but duller jobs in the Commons. He has, in any event, performed his filial devotion by representing Rugby in Parliament after his father did so for 18 years.
Others can certainly be forgiven for deciding now, while pressed to choose, to opt for a different lifestyle. Adam Afriyie is not yet 60 but has been in the House since 2005, has overseen the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, one of his passions, and, without wishing to be unkind, is not likely to be offered a ministerial post in the future: if you were a shadow before 2010 but received absolutely nothing after the election, it is time to accept that your time has passed. In addition, Afriyie is battling with HMRC about a contested bankruptcy petition which is due to “complex business reasons”. Whatever the reality of his financial situation, it is understandable that he has decided to simplify his life.
Sir Charles Walker (Broxbourne) will be a genuine loss to the House. A hale and hearty 55, he has been a Member for 17 years, so will have notched up two decades, more or less, when he leaves. He joined the Panel of Chairs, the senior MPs who preside over legislative committees, in 2010, and has chaired proceedings in Committee of the Whole House on a number of occasions; he is procedurally the ultimate safe pair of hands (I should know, I used to have to choose the chairs for these occasions). He chaired the House’s procedure committee from 2012 to 2017, in which role he was diligent and wise-headed. If anyone deserves the over-used phrase “a real House of Commons man”, it is Sir Charles. But he is disenchanted, and he raged on camera at the state of his party as Liz Truss’s premiership collapsed. His decision to leave Parliament does not, it is very true, reflect well on his party.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) is leaving a little ahead of time. He has been in the House since 2010, and was a junior minister under May and Johnson before finding himself in cabinet as minister for the Cabinet Office from 2021 to 2022, but he did not find favour with the Truss régime. He has therefore decided to move on rather than grow old on the backbenches. That is a rational calculation, but it is likely that the chances of an electoral defeat for his party at the next election has played a part in his thinking. He still has a working life ahead of him and his years in the Commons and in Whitehall will give him skills to offer.
Undoubtedly, some MPs are leaving at a young age. Chris Skidmore (41), Chloe Smith (40), Andrew Percy (45), William Wragg (34) and Dehenna Davison (29) could all expect decades more in the House if they wished, and poor electoral prospects, either personally or for the party generally, may well have influenced them to call it quits. Smith, Percy and Davison have all been ministers, while Wragg is currently chairman of the House of Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, where he has been active and independent.
Smith has had a turbulent time in her 13 years in the House, from an early and scarifying encounter with Jeremy Paxman through cancer to a very brief cabinet career as work and pensions secretary. She was promoted to government at 29, supposedly because David Cameron thought she was an accountant who would be well suited to the role of economic secretary to the Treasury. (In fact she was a management consultant for Deloitte.) Smith has been in the Cabinet Office twice, and worked under the excellent, late James Brokenshire at the Northern Ireland Office. In short, when she leaves after 15 years, she will have packed a lot in. I confess I’ve always been rather fond of her: she’s always been friendly and cheerful, and I admire her ability to give things a go. I assume she will forge a full career elsewhere, given her age. And I wish her well.
Davison has attracted attention ever since her remarkable victory in Bishop Auckland in 2019. The constituency had never been represented by a Conservative until then, and she has, in some ways, exemplified the Red Wall. She took the University of Hull’s highly regarded degree in British politics and legislative studies and campaigned for the university to disaffiliate from the National Union of Students, a solid radical Tory background, and stood for Parliament in 2015 (Hull North) and 2017 (Sedgefield). Since becoming an MP, she has cut a distinctive and social media-friendly figure, rather admirably living the life of a woman in her 20s, notwithstanding her status as a Member of Parliament. She was given ministerial office by Liz Truss, whom she had supported for the leadership, and retained at the Department for Levelling-Up, Housing and Communities by Rishi Sunak, and many noted the beginning of what was supposed to be a long frontbench career. Yet last month she announced she would not contest the next election. Davison said she wanted a “life outside politics”, which is understandable, but it is difficult to imagine she would have reached the same conclusion if the Conservatives were odds on to win in 2024.
I will miss Chris Skidmore. Partly it’s a personal affinity: he studied at my old college, Christ Church, Oxford, and is a specialist in the mid-Tudor period, which is very much my area. So I found plenty to talk about when I first met him, many years ago now in Strangers’ Bar. He had two periods in ministerial office, as a junior Cabinet Office minister (2016-18) and a minister of state for universities (2018-19, 2019-20) and health (2019). In September, although he did not return to government, he was appointed chair of the government-supported Net Zero Review. Skidmore has campaigned on environmental issues and as interim minister for energy and clean growth in 2019 he committed the UK to its current net zero by 2050 targets. Again, like Davison, it is easy to imagine he would stand again if his party’s prospects were brighter, but he may well find equal fulfilment in the NGO and policy world. I wish him well.
Andrew Percy is an amiable man. A long-time member of the health and social care committee, he has been rebellious and seemed ill-at-ease in his 11 months as a minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government. He was lured in by Theresa May with a brief which included the Northern Powerhouse, but did not return after the 2017 election. The same year he converted to Judaism. It is a pity he sees his future outside the House of Commons, at least for now, but has decades of working life to devote to other activities. A casualty of poor electoral prospects? Not definitely. But maybe.
William Wragg and I barely crossed paths in Parliament (though I confess for a few months I had in my mind that he and Will Quince were each other, or possibly the same person). In 2020, at 32 and a grizzled veteran of two parliaments, he was elected chair of the public administration and constitutional affairs committee. It is not a conventional route to political stardom. Its formal remit is: constitutional issues; the quality and standards of administration provided by civil service departments; and the reports of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO). But Wragg has taken on the brief with gusto, and has, admittedly, been lucky in his timing, scrutinising the Electoral Commission, lobbying, the Greensill scandal, English devolution and appointments to the House of Lords. Declaring no confidence in Truss’s leadership, he told the Commons in a frank and bravura performance he would not vote against the government of that meant losing the whip because he would then have to withdraw his letter of no confidence. He will be missed as a straightforward and independent-minded parliamentarian.
The only big beast to announce is departure is Sajid Javid (Bromsgrove). This is a loss, no question, and very much not a vote of confidence. Only elected in 2010, Javid has cycled through six cabinet positions, including two of the four “Great Offices of State” (home secretary and chancellor of the exchequer). He was not brought back into the fold by Rishi Sunak, who had been his number two at the Treasury in 2019-20, and I strongly suspect that the absence of an offer was the tipping point in his decision to stand down. Javid is only 53 (call it 55 by the election) so leaving now gives him some useful working life, rather than spending another parliament or two on the backbenches. He was a high earner in corporate life before joining the Commons, and will no doubt command high fees in a post-office world. But he must think (probably rightly, to be brutally honest) that his days of high ministerial rank have ended. More importantly, perhaps, he must have decided that if the Conservatives lose in 2024, and if Sunak is forced out, he has no interest in leading the party in opposition.
I’m not trying to suggest either that the Conservatives are leading the field to win the next general election, or that Tory MPs are relaxed about the prospect of a harsh electoral wind. Maybe five MPs are going who would otherwise almost undoubtedly have sought reelection, the party will be the poorer for their absence and they are responding to a partly self-inflicted set of wounds. But the media response needs to be muted a little bit. Perhaps the 2024 contest will see a Conservative massacre akin to 1997 or 1906. Perhaps these wise hounds are simply sniffing an early wind. But I suspect that the truth is more complicated and muddier than that. As is so often the way, it’s complicated.