Image source, Reuters

On the campaign trail in Lancashire, Labour leader Keir Starmer has said Prime Minister Rishi Sunak "wasn't being straight" with the mother of Martyn Hett, one of the victims of the Manchester Arena bombing.

Figen Murray, whose son was one of 22 people killed by the attack on 22 May 2017, met Starmer and Sunak earlier this week.

She was pushing for Martyn's Law, which would tighten security at public venues, to be passed through before parliament was dissolved.

"I met her that day as well, and I said to her... if the prime minister has committed to getting it through before he calls an election, I will 100% back him on that - we will vote for it so he can get it through," he said.

"If he doesn't get it through we will do it as a priority for an incoming Labour government."

Image source, UK Parliament

Nickie Aiken, the Cities of London and Westminster MP, used her farewell speech in the Commons today to call for “more women’s voices” in politics.

The Conservative MP, who is standing down after one term, said women have "every single right to stand for public office."

She said: “We have got to hear more women's voices in this place and across all political spheres. We are 51 per cent of the population. We give birth to the other 49 per cent.”

Concluding her speech with a message to women and girls, Aiken said: “If this girl from Cardiff, from a comprehensive education, can become leader of Westminster City Council and then the first woman MP for Cities of London and Westminster, then you can too."

Best-known for her work to crack down on rogue pedicabs in London - a piece of legislation that made it into the King’s Speech - Aiken is leaving Westminster for the United Arab Emirates, where her husband will serve as communications adviser at the United Arab Emirates' ministry of foreign affairs.

Jack Fenwick
Political reporter

Image source, EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

It’s been a strange day here in Westminster, with many of the MPs that are standing down spending their final day in Parliament.

Lots of these people thought they’d have a few months more to get things in order and say goodbye to the people they’ve worked with for years.

Between watching valedictory speeches from the likes of Theresa May and Dame Harriet Harman, I’ve been popping in and out of the offices of departing MPs, to see what the mood is like.

There are boxes piled high, as MPs and staff scramble to pack things up. Dame Margaret Hodge, who has been a Labour MP since 1994, told me that she feels as if she’s packing up 30 years of memories.

Dame Harriet Harman, an MP since 1982, told me her children were watching from the gallery as she made her final speech.

She said the House of Commons records show that she’s spoken in the chamber 9,880 times.

But for Dame Harriet, the timing hasn’t been fantastic. She recently broke her elbow – not ideal she says, when colleagues are in “maximum hugging mode”.

And for some MPs, rather than focusing on the goodbyes, they face an anxious wait to see if they can get some final bits of work done.

I caught up with the veteran Tory MP Sir Charles Walker as he was nervously checking his phone to see if the government would be publishing a wild deer strategy that he’s been working on for years.

And the collegiate nature of politics – not always evident on the telly – was on show too. Sir Charles bumped into his friend, the Labour MP Rushanara Ali. They shared a hug and promised to stay in touch.

Hannah Miller
Political correspondent

The first few days of Rishi Sunak’s general election campaign have raised eyebrows even among those on his own side.

The former leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, Ruth Davidson, jokes that there may be a “double agent” in Tory HQ, “or were they a headline writer in a previous life?”

Baroness Davidson highlights the PM’s ”deluge launch drowning out by D:Ream", a brewery visit by the teetotal PM and “now a site visit to something famous for sinking”.

On his visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter this morning, Mr Sunak was asked by a Belfast Live reporter if he is ‘captaining a sinking ship’.

His party will be hoping the metaphors like that don’t keep on coming.

TV debates - what are the rules and do they help decide the outcome?published at 16:41 British Summer Time 24 May

16:41 BST 24 May

Harry Farley
Political correspondent

There is a row over election TV debates – how many should there be? Who should take part?

Feel familiar?

That’s because there’s no law requiring election debates between party leaders, or setting the rules. So at every election it involves negotiations between the parties and different broadcasters – and inevitably a disagreement.

Usually the party seen as the underdogs, as well as the smaller parties, are more enthusiastic about TV debates. They see them as an opportunity to shift their fortunes - to make their case to an unconvinced public. So for them, the more debates the merrier.

For a political leader with a healthy poll lead, there is more to lose. So TV debates pose more of a risk.

But do they actually make a difference and help people decide how to vote?

The evidence is not entirely clear. But one study from the polling company ComRes asked 2,500 people their views after the 2017 Question Time Special. That wasn’t a head-to-head debate but rather the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn separately faced questions from an audience.

A third (34%) said “the programme helped me to decide what party to vote for”. The study also found that younger people claimed to have learned considerably more about British politics from the programme than older ones.

Image source, PA Media

Another departing minister has been speaking in the Commons today.

Robert Halfon, who became the Conservative MP for Harlow in 2010, says he never wanted to be known as a disabled MP and rarely spoke about it as a result.

He described Westminster as "a terrible place for people who have difficulties."

"The lavatories are never working, the lifts are never working, the doors are always shut. There is just not enough understanding, and it's not about producing a press release saying we're an inclusive and diverse employer. It means nothing."

Halfon says he is proud of what he has achieved.

"It is an incredible, incredible honour to be able to make policy and some of the reforms we've done in the past couple of years - the lifelong learning entitlement, for example - will revolutionise adult learning."

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent, travelling with the PM

We’ve just had a fairly tense situation at the prime minister arrived at an event in the Midlands.

His entourage of vehicles was rushed by protesters and he had to be rushed inside by his protection team and police.

Image source, UK Parliament

Conservative MP and former minister Sir David Evennett is the latest MP to announce he will not be contesting his seat at the upcoming election - bringing the tally to 119.

The MP for Bexleyheath and Crayford says he had been considering his position after the "unexpected" 4 July election announcement and has now decided to "step down from active politics".

In a statement posted on social media platform X, Evennett also says he believes the last 14 years of Conservative government has "achieved a great deal", and says he remains dedicated to the party.

Image source, .

Ben Sidwell
BBC Midlands Today

We've been hearing about a lot of MPs stepping down from politics, but now here's some news about someone hoping to enter the political fray.

In the middle of the pedestrian shopping area in Sutton Coldfield, with a megaphone in one hand and an umbrella in the other, the journalist and former BBC Panorama and Newsnight reporter John Sweeney loudly announced he would be standing as the Liberal Democrats candidate in this constituency.

His campaign leaflet says he wants to see more money spent on the NHS, schools, clean rivers, people with disabilities and on looking after ordinary, extraordinary people who haven’t done so well in life.

Referring to Rishi Sunak's announcement of the election outside Downing Street in the pouring rain, on numerous occasions over the loudhailer he stated "Vote Liberal Democratic, also use an umbrella."

Eager to show his personality, he told those listening in the town centre that Sutton Coldfield needs The Sweeney.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent, travelling with the PM

We’re in the Midlands just now where Rishi Sunak is supposed to be hosting his final event of his whirlwind election tour.

There’s a fairly small, but very noisey, pro-Gaza protest outside.

Seems the event is being delayed.

Rishi Sunak says that he "stepped up to do something that is bold" over his plan to phase out smoking and that he is "disappointed" it did not come into law.

The bill is among those that did not have time to be passed before Parliament dissolves today ahead of July's general election.

Jennifer McKiernan
BBC political reporter

A call to invest in defence has come from Ben Wallace, who was defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, as he gave his last speech in the Commons before standing down as an MP.

Wallace, a former British Army officer, urged MPs to take UK security seriously.

He said: "Please, invest in defence, make sure it's core, don't let leaders say things like 'when economic conditions allow' - we don't say that about health, we don't say that about education.

"Because I am frightened, having read so much intelligence for so many years, that by the end of this decade if our armed forces and our security services are not match fit for the threat that is coming our way we will only have ourselves to blame.

"And it is our children that might have to go and fight for us and they deserve to be as protected as possible with the best equipment and the best allies."

Cemlyn Davies
Political correspondent, BBC Wales

The fact that the new leader of Welsh Labour wasn't doing interviews at Welsh Labour's election campaign launch will certainly have raised eyebrows.

We're told by the party this was because Vaughan Gething had already given interviews yesterday and on Wednesday, and there would be "plenty of opportunity" to interview him again over the coming weeks.

They also point to the fact that two other senior figures, including the UK party's deputy leader Angela Rayner, did speak to the media.

But given the ongoing row about controversial donations to his leadership campaign, it's inevitable that critics will suggest he's trying to avoid more awkward questions.

On the campaign trail yesterday Mr Gething insisted the scandal, which has overshadowed his first two months in office, wasn't coming up on the doorstep and he wasn't worried about it becoming a distraction ahead of the election.

And yet, on the day his party launched the campaign it has spent so much time preparing for, once again his decision to accept that money becomes a news story.

Nick Eardley
Political correspondent, travelling with the PM

Image source, Reuters

I’ve just arrived in the Midlands with the prime minister after a whistle-stop tour of the UK.

He spoke to reporters on the plane – what we political journalists call a huddle, where questions are off camera but on the record.

Here are a few things he said:

• Despite a tricky start to the campaign (the rain in Downing Street, no Rwanda flights until the election and the smoking ban not getting through parliament), Sunak declared he would win the election. When I asked him directly, he said: “Yeah, damn right”

• After being accused of misleading the mother of a victim of the Manchester bombings about introducing a law on venue security before summer, he said he stuck by the promise. On Martyn’s Law, the PM said: “There will still be time to bring that in before Summer Recess and that’s what I remain committed to doing and we’ve done all the prep work"

• Rishi Sunak said he remained “very committed” to implementing a ban on smoking for people born after 2009 (the bill has run out of time in Parliament before the election). But he wouldn’t say firmly that it would be in the Conservative manifesto

• The PM paid tribute to Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP standing down due to his sepsis recovery: “Whenever I am having difficult days I just think about what he has been through and the courage and resilience he has shown, all of us can take something from that and be inspired"

• The prime minister refused to comment on specific tax cuts, but pointed to recent cuts to National Insurance and said: “We’re cutting people’s taxes – that’s what you can expect from a Conservative government always.” He claimed Labour would increase tax – pointing to Treasury analysis of Labour policy commitments. The BBC has looked at some of the numbers here

Image source, PA Media

Former health minister Matt Hancock is also among the departing MPs to give their final speeches in the Commons today, as the current parliamentary session comes to an end ahead of the general election.

Hancock, who quit as health minister in 2021, thanked the NHS and those who had helped to develop the UK's Covid vaccine programme, calling it "without doubt one of the country's finest achievements in peacetime".

The outgoing MP for West Suffolk concluded by saying: "It is impossible to win unless you truly want to serve your country. I believe that everybody comes into this place wanting to make their country a better place".

"I've tried my hardest to do that for 14 years, to reach out, to try to do things differently and to try to embrace the future. It's been an honour and a privilege and I thank you."

Image source, UK Parliament/PA Wire

Deputy Commons Speaker Dame Rosie Winterton has also been making her final remarks in the Commons.

She says she feels lucky to have played a part in the UK's democracy and thanked MPs for their kind words about her departure.

Winterton adds that while the Commons can sometimes get argumentative, as happened earlier this year over a Gaza ceasefire debate, that is the "price of our democracy".

The outgoing MP for Doncaster Central, a seat she has held for Labour since 1997, announced in 2022 that she would stand down at the next election.

Jennifer McKiernan
BBC political reporter

The latest MP to stand down, Greg Clark, has taken the tally of MPs standing down at this election to 118.

Clark, the Conservative MP for Tunbridge Wells, announced his intention to stand down this afternoon.

His resignation means the number of MPs standing down at the election has now surpassed the 1997 election, which was 117.

Of those 118, 75 are Conservative MPs. In 1997, that figure was 72.

However, although 1997 was a peak, 2010 was higher and saw 149 MPs stepping down.

Image source, UK Parliament

Former PM Theresa May has made her farewell speech in parliament after serving for more than 25 years as the MP for Maidenhead.

"I think it is the best job in the world," she says of being an MP, adding that "of course it has its frustrations".

"It particularly has its frustrations when you're in parliament and people don't vote on your own side for your own legislation - three times," she says to laughter, in reference to her Brexit defeats in the Commons.

"It is a really important job and the key to it is to represent constituents... and I wonder that today there are too many people in politics who think it is about them."

May also urged her Conservative colleagues to "go out there and fight to ensure a Conservative government is re-elected".

We can bring you some images now of Rishi Sunak speaking with journalists a little earlier as he travelled from Northern Ireland to Birmingham.

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Image source, PA Media

Earlier we reported that Jeremy Corbyn declared that he would stand as an independent against the official Labour candidate in his Islington North constituency.

Now we are hearing from the Labour Party, who has decided its candidate for Islington North to run against Corbyn will be Praful Nargund.

Nargund is an Islington councillor and a member of the council's health, wellbeing and adult social care scrutiny committee.