Labour’s Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket General Election 2024 candidate is NHS surgeon Peter Prinsley

An NHS surgeon is hoping to make history to become the first Labour MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket.

Peter Prinsley, of Norwich, was selected as Labour’s prospective parliamentary candidate for the seat on Thursday - a day after Rishi Sunak announced the July 4 General Election.

The 66-year-old has been an ear, nose and throat surgeon for about 40 years and currently serves at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and James Paget Hospital.

He has been a Norwich City councillor since 2023.

After Conservative MP Jo Churchill announced she was stepping down this week, Mr Prinsley hopes to become the constituency’s first Labour MP.

He said: “The national picture is favourable for Labour and I think there’s a really strong mood throughout this country for a change. I’m picking up exactly the same mood for a change in this constituency.”

Mr Prinsley knows Bury having held many meetings in the town as regional director for the Royal College of Surgeons.

The father of three and grandfather is an honorary commander of the United States Airforce 48th Wing medical group at RAF Lakenheath.

He said: “I think the issues here are very much the national issues - people feel the country is going in the wrong direction and I would like to make sure a Labour government got elected to put things right.”

Mr Prinsley, who was campaigning in Bury town centre yesterday, said he would like to be a medical voice in Parliament, where ‘there are very few doctors, particularly Labour doctors’.

He listed issues such as falling life expectancy, mental health problems, a failing dental system, crumbling hospitals and surgical waiting lists.

Mr Prinsley is from a medical family and his father joined the NHS when it was formed in 1948.

He has a son who is an accident and emergency doctor in London.

His wife Marian is a retired educational psychologist, a former Sheriff of Norwich and Deputy Lieutenant of Norfolk.

Mrs Churchill won the 2019 election with a 24,988 vote majority after securing 37,770 votes.

Mr Prinsley said: “We’re going to be campaigning like mad all over the constituency.

“We do feel optimistic but know it’s a huge majority to overturn.”

Also contesting the Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket constituency are Emma Buckmaster for the Greens alongside Liberal Democrat Peter McDonald.