Michael Gove says he will not stand down amid rumours he would quit next general election

Levelling up secretary Michael Gove has insisted that he will stand again at the next general election, as a number of his colleagues announce they will resign amid fears of electoral wipeout at the ballot box.

Former chancellor Sajid Javid and rising star Dehenna Davison have both announced in the past week that they will not contest the next election, as some Conservative MPs publicly admit to bracing for a return to opposition once the public has their say.

With Rishi Sunak’s party still languishing close to 20 points behind Labour in the polls, these fears were compounded on Friday in his first by-election test, which saw the Conservatives suffer their worst result in Chester since 1832.

Rumours were sparked by Liberal Democrat activists in his Surry Heath constituency on Friday that Mr Gove could follow suit by announcing his own intention to step down in a speech to local Conservatives.

But appearing on Times Radio on Friday evening, the cabinet minister confirmed that he intends to stand at the next election – drawing laughter from former colleague and host Ed Vaizey as he described wanting to remain an MP as he is “addicted to public service”.

And Mr Gove rejected the charge that the slew of departing Tory MPs shows that the party is “basically collapsing”, saying: “No … the great thing is that there is a generation of new Conservative MPs who are doing fantastically.”

He added: “Sometimes really talented people stand down even when the Conservative Party is on the brink of a landslide victory, as you did in 2019. So I don’t think you can extrapolate too much.”

Mr Gove instead argued that “there’s an individual reason” in the case of each of the Tory MPs’ departures, with Ms Davison opting not to stand again partly “because she’s devoted most of her life to politics and she’s not yet 30 … I know she wants to have a breather”.

Appearing on what was former Tory culture secretary Mr Vaizey’s first hosting slot on Times Radio, Mr Gove discussed turning down a presenting slot on the radio channel himself after Mr Sunak reinstated him as a government minister, having been overlooked by Liz Truss during her historically short tenure in No 10.

“I had already been discussing with the great Times Radio team what I would do, and I got a telephone call asking me to come into No 10 Downing Street to see the prime minister,” he said.

Mr Gove said he felt he had “unfinished business” in resuming his role as levelling up secretary, having been fired by Boris Johnson after privately advising the outgoing PM to resign during the collapse of his government.

He described being “very privileged to have served under four prime ministers”, adding in a remark underscoring the unprecedented political disarray of recent months: “This would have obviously made me unique in Victorian times but nowadays it’s something that almost any cabinet minister can say.”

Mr Gove said he had got along well with Ms Truss “for a lot of the time” they had been in parliament together but the pair “did not always see eye-to-eye on every issue slightly later in her career.”

Put to him that he had been sacked by three prime ministers, Mr Gove said that he “deserved it” under Theresa May, who he said was “well within her rights” to fire him after launching his “own ill-fated leadership bid” in the wake of the Brexit vote.

Pressed on the rather more current matter of whether Matt Hancock should have the Tory whip reinstated after being suspended from the party over his appearance in ITV’s I’m A Celebrity while parliament was sitting, Mr Gove said he believed in “forgiveness”.