General election 2024 live: Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer make final pitches to voters ahead of polling day

Housing Secretary General Michael Gove has announced he will not stand at the General Election, as the number of Tory MPs standing down continues to rise.

After nearly 20 years as the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath and serving in multiple cabinets over the course of 14 years, said not it is time for “a new generation” to lead.

My colleague David Thompson, the Belfast News Letter’s political editor, spoke to Rishi Sunak today on his visit to Northern Ireland. He asked whether the reality is that – despite the government’s claims about how much it values the Union – what it has delivered is Northern Ireland's detachment from the union through the Windsor Framework.

Sunak rejected that assessment, saying: “No, I don't I don't agree with that characterization. I care very deeply about the people of Northern Ireland and when I got this job, Chris and I sat down, and we wanted to do everything we could to ensure that people in Northern Ireland had their devolved government up and running, which hadn't been in place for years.”

Read David’s full piece below.

Another piece of legislation that looks likely to fall by the wayside due to the general election is Martyn’s law. This would require venues and local authorities in the UK to have training requirements and preventative plans against terror attacks.

It’s named after Martyn Hett, who was one of the 22 people killed in the Manchester bombing in 2017. Martyn’s mother, Figen Murray, has been campaigning for this, and on Wednesday finished a 200-mile walk from Manchester to London to deliver a letter to Rishi Sunak.

That was the seventh anniversary of Martyn’s death. She met Rishi Sunak, who promised her the law would get passed before the summer recess. Then he called a general election ...

Figen said: “These last few days have been hard – I was exhausted after walking 200 miles from Manchester to London, I was upset by the anniversary and then I felt misled by the Prime Minister.

“It’s great that the PM is now saying he will support Martyn’s Law if elected – and I thank him for that. But Martyn’s Law was a commitment for the last Parliament, not the next one, and I feel let down by all the promises that were made and broken.”

Sunak claimed he had not deceived Ms Murray and that he is committed to bringing in the law. “I said by summer recess and that will still be possible,” he told journalists accompanying him on the campaign trail.

“The election is in the first week of July. Parliament will reconvene immediately after that, so there will still be time to bring that law in before summer recess, and that’s what I remain committed to doing.

“We’ve done all the prep work and I had a very constructive conversation with Figen and actually I start by paying tribute, as I said to her at the time, to her bravery in the face of tragedy that happened to her family, to have then campaigned for positive change.”

The former Labour MP Claudia Webbe has announced that she, like Jeremy Corbyn, will be standing against Keir Starmer’s party as an independent at the general election.

Webbe was kicked out of Labour after being found guilty of harassment against a woman in 2021. She threatened to share naked photos of the woman and told her she should be “acid”. We reported on the story at the time here.

This could cause issues for Labour in her seat of Leicester East, as she is likely to attract supporters who are angry at the party’s stance over Gaza.

News has just come in that Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, which would have prevented young people from ever being able to smoke, will not make it through wash up, and so will not be passed. Yet bizarrely, the Prime Minister has claimed this is an example of his “bold action”. I’m not sure that will wash with the public.

He told reporters in Northern Ireland that he was “of course disappointed not to be able to get that through at the end of the session given the time available”.

“But what I’d say is that’s evidence of the bold action that I’m prepared to take. That’s the type of Prime Minister I am. That’s the type of leadership that I bring. I stepped up to do something that is bold, that will make an enormous difference in the future of our country.”

Some people might argue that if you were so passionate about passing this legislation, why not call the election after it had actually become law. A similar case is being made about Rwanda, after the PM admitted that no flights will take off.

News has just come in that Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, which would have prevented young people from ever being able to smoke, will not make it through wash up, and so will not be passed. Yet bizarrely, the Prime Minister has claimed this is an example of his “bold action”. I’m not sure that will wash with the public.

He told reporters in Northern Ireland that he was “of course disappointed not to be able to get that through at the end of the session given the time available”.

“But what I’d say is that’s evidence of the bold action that I’m prepared to take. That’s the type of Prime Minister I am. That’s the type of leadership that I bring. I stepped up to do something that is bold, that will make an enormous difference in the future of our country.”

Some people might argue that if you were so passionate about passing this legislation, why not call the election after it had actually become law. A similar case is being made about Rwanda, after the PM admitted that no flights will take off.

News has just come in that Rishi Sunak’s smoking ban, which would have prevented young people from ever being able to smoke, will not make it through wash up, and so will not be passed. Yet bizarrely, the Prime Minister has claimed this is an example of his “bold action”. I’m not sure that will wash with the public.

He told reporters in Northern Ireland that he was “of course disappointed not to be able to get that through at the end of the session given the time available”.

“But what I’d say is that’s evidence of the bold action that I’m prepared to take. That’s the type of Prime Minister I am. That’s the type of leadership that I bring. I stepped up to do something that is bold, that will make an enormous difference in the future of our country.”

Some people might argue that if you were so passionate about passing this legislation, why not call the election after it had actually become law. A similar case is being made about Rwanda, after the PM admitted that no flights will take off.

The first bit of policy heft of this general election campaign comes from the Lib Dems. Leader Sir Ed Davey has unveiled plans to give patients a right to see a GP in seven days.

Davey announced the pledge on a visit to Eastbourne, a target constituency for the party where the Lib Dems came second behind Conservative MP Caroline Ansell.

Speaking at Eastbourne Pier, the party leader said: “So many people tell us they can’t get a GP appointment in the time they want. They’re having to wait days and weeks in some cases.

“We’re so excited that we’re coming forward with new ideas about how we can transform our health system that will really help people struggling at the moment.”

The Renters Reform Bill has not made it into wash up, which is where the government and opposition parties agree to push through legislation which is nearing completion. That means the Conservatives have failed to deliver their promise to ban no-fault evictions from their 2019 manifesto.

Tom Darling, campaign manager of the Renters’ Reform Coalition, a campaign group of 20 leading housing and renter organisations, commented: “In 2019 the Conservative Manifesto promised to deliver a better deal for private renters and an end to no-fault evictions.

“Renters in England – trapped in an unhealthy, unaffordable and insecure renting system – have been waiting five long years for action on that pledge. Today we get confirmation that the Renters (Reform) Bill won’t pass – meaning the Bill is dead and the task of fixing England’s broken renting system will fall to the next government. Renters have been so badly let down.”

As NationalWorld previously reported, several landlord Tory MPs put a lot of pressure on Michael Gove, the Housing Secretary, to water down the bill. Shadow Housing Minister, Matthew Pennycook, said: “The Tories' decision to cave in to vested interests and abandon their already weakened Renters Reform Bill leaves in tatters the promises they made to private tenants five years ago.

“If the Tories get back in, renters will remain exposed to spiralling costs, poor housing standards and the risk of homelessness from no-fault evictions.

“Labour will turn the page on 14 years of Tory chaos, deliver where the Tories have failed and pass robust renters reform legislation that abolishes Section 21 no-fault evictions immediately and decisively levels the playing field between landlords and tenants.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, has been on the broadcast round this morning. Here are a few of the key things he said:

TV debates: Rishi Sunak has challenged Starmer to six TV debates, one a week until election day. The Labour leader has reportedly offered to do two. Today, he said: “He is sounding increasingly desperate, I have to say. Of course there are going to be TV debates. They are part and parcel of the election cycle now. I obviously want to spend as much of my time talking to voters directly.”

Two-child benefit cap: This is a policy which for years Labour figures have said has caused immense poverty, however Starmer has said an incoming government could not afford to get rid of it. He said he would scrap it “in an ideal world, of course”. “But we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment,” he added.

Diane Abbott: the investigation into the veteran Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP will be concluded before the election, Starmer said. He told LBC: “It will be resolved, yes of course it will. We have got a cut-off date for, I think it is 4 June, or thereabouts.”

Jeremy Corbyn: Starmer said former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s decision to stand as an independent is “a matter for him”. He added: “We will have an excellent Labour candidate in Islington North, as we’ve got excellent Labour candidates across the country.”