All The MPs Standing Down At The Next General Election
Former prime minister Theresa May and Conservative MP Paul Scully are standing down as MPs at the next general election (Alamy)
5 min read
With the next general election expected this year, more than 100 MPs have already chosen to not stand again for their seats – the majority of whom are Conservatives.
The next general election must be called by December 2024, meaning it could be held as late as January 2025, but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said repeatedly that his "working assumption" is that it would be in the second half of the year.
So far, 101 MPs have announced their intention to stand down as MPs at the next general election. At the last general election in 2019, a total of 74 MPs announced that they would not stand again, while in 2017's snap election it was 31 MPs.
PoliticsHome has compiled a list of all the MPs who are standing down at the next general election so far, along with when they announced their upcoming resignation, how their seat will be affected by the constituency boundary review, the year they were first elected, their vote majority in the 2019 election and their date of birth. The lists also include independent MPs, such as Matt Hancock, who ran in the 2019 election as part of a party but have since had the whip withdrawn.
The lists include MPs who are still sitting and do not intend to stand at the next election, but do not include any MPs who have already stood down and been replaced in by-elections, such as Nadine Dorries, Boris Johnson and Chris Skidmore.
Here all the MPs who have announced they are standing down at the next general election:
69 MPs who were elected as Conservatives in 2019 have announced they are standing down at the next general election so far.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May is perhaps the most recognised politician to announce she is stepping down as an MP after 27 years in the Commons. May told her local paper the Maidenhead Advertiser she had focused more on issues such as modern slavery and human trafficking while she was on the backbenches.
She said such work had taken increasing amounts of her time and said she felt she could not longer represent her constituent as effectively.
Given the Conservatives' majority in Parliament, it is not surprising that the Tories are seeing most MPs out of all the parties call it quits at the next election – and even less surprising when you consider the the dire picture of the polls for the Tories, in which they have been trailing behind Labour for more than a year.
What is perhaps more telling is the fact that many of those stepping back from frontline politics are relatively young, in their 30s and 40s. While the Tory MPs stepping down have an average age of 56 years, Labour MPs stepping down have an average age of 69, mostly made up of veteran MPs retiring from long professional lives in Parliament.
Among the Tories, levelling up minister Dehenna Davison was the first MP elected at the 2019 election to announce she will not run again. At 30 years old, she is one of the youngest MPs in her party, and said she was choosing to stand down as she hadn’t “had anything like a normal life for a 20-something”.
Former health secretary and one-time leadership contender Sajid Javid, 54, has also announced he is resigning his seat, as well as former deputy prime minister Dominic Raab, aged 49. Kwasi Kwarteng, who served as chancellor for only 38 days during Liz Truss's short-lived premiership, posted on X in February that he would not be standing again.
William Wragg, a vice-chairman of the influential 1922 Committee, has announced his intention not to run again. He joined the Commons in 2015, when he was 27 years old.
A significant number of Tories have also resigned as ministers when they have announced their intention to stand down as MPs, including most recently skills minister Robert Halfon, former schools minister Nick Gibb, former defence minister James Heappey, and Ben Wallace, who resigned as defence secretary last summer.
Conservative MP Mike Freer announced in early February that he would be standing down at the next election, after a series of death threats and an attack on his constituency office in December.
"There comes a point when the threats to your personal safety become too much," he told the Daily Mail.
Other notable Conservatives not contesting the next election include former Cabinet minister Chloe Smith, who most recently served as science, innovation and technology secretary to cover Michelle Donelan's maternity leave.
Several high profile Labour MPs have already announced their decision not to run again, including “Mother of the House” Harriet Harman who has been the MP for Peckham and Camberwell since 1982, longstanding Derby South MP Margaret Beckett, who served as the first female foreign secretary, and Labour's longest continuously serving MP Barry Sheerman.
The most common year that Labour MPs standing down were first elected was 1997, the year of Tony Blair's Labour landslide victory. Big New Labour names including Alan Whitehead, Ben Bradshaw and Rosie Winterton are stepping down.
Out of the remaining parties, the SNP have by far the most MPs stepping down: most of whom were elected in 2015 in an election which saw the SNP win all but three seats in Scotland in an unprecedented landslide victory, gaining a total of 56 seats (an increase of 50 seats).
Caroline Lucas, the country's only Green Party MP, is not standing again in her Brighton Pavillion seat.
This list was last amended on 25 April 2024 and will be continually updated in the run-up to the general election.
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