Matt Hancock will have to stand down as an MP, hints Business Secretary Grant Shapps

MATT Hancock will have to stand down as an MP before the next General Election, business secretary Grant Shapps has suggested.

Asked about MPs standing down ahead of the next election in an interview with Ellie Costello and Stephen Dixon on GB News, he said: “Well, at every election people stand down, people’s lives change and then decide to move on and do something else.

“I suspect you may have identified a ninth [MP], although it hasn’t been announced, with my colleague, Matt Hancock.

“You know, people move on as to the way it works in politics. And I can’t remember a parliament where people haven’t said, ‘oh, there’s some strange trend going on here.

“Some people are moving on. That’s just what happens. Sometimes people decide to do something else.”

Asked if Tory MPs are jumping before being pushed, Mr Shapps said: “Twas ever thus. I mean, there are always people who only serve a single term, I bet I could find examples from every single Parliament. People move on.”

“There are sort of eight or nine MPs who said they’re going to stand down but that happens, every election, there’ll be for a whole variety of different reasons.”

On how the Government is currently performing, Mr Shapps continued: “I genuinely think we have ideas to take the country forward.

“What Jeremy Hunt the Chancellor did a couple of weeks ago, was to be realistic about what needs to be done as a result of both the pandemic and the war. We’ve got a couple of years to go and in that time, I believe we’ll set out a very positive story about why it is that we’ve got the right ideas to take this country forward.

Asked if this government resembled that of John Major’s, he said: “It really doesn’t. I have not heard a compelling argument at all, from the leader of the opposition as to why Labour actually wants to run this country. I don’t know what that guy (Mr Starmer) stands for.

“He definitely stood for election as an extreme Corbynite, trying to get to the left of Corbyn and promising all of those policies. He has come in now says he’s something else, yet anyway, he’s a lawyer who will take a brief and deliver it. That is what Sir Keir Starmer does.

“I think actually in the end, the country wants to be led by a party that actually believes in sorting out the economy, keeping unemployment low, we’ve got the lowest unemployment in 50 years and we have a plan for the future. I accept we’ve got challenges to set all of that out, I accept that entirely.

“We’ve been through some pretty tough times. Let’s be honest. But I do not agree, if you’re telling me that the election in two years time is lost. I don’t agree with that.”