Quick guide: Top Tories
Team tactics were much in evidence at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this week. So who are the key players that the housing sector needs to get on side, and what do they stand for?
Caroline Spelman
MP for Meridien and shadow secretary of state communities and local government
Key quote: ‘We want to revive democracy with the oxygen of localism’
Wants to:
- allow councils to abolish existing cabinet structures in favour of committees
- hold mayoral elections in 12 areas, with winners able to dismiss local authority chief executives should they see fit
- force town halls to publish online all spending over £500
Grant Shapps
MP for Welwyn Hatfield and shadow housing minister
Key quote: ‘Together, we’ll become a nation of house builders’
Wants to:
- abolish house building targets
- incentivise local areas to develop by matching the council tax take for every new home built – with an extra 25 per cent for every new affordable home
- introduce ‘open source planning’ to allow local communities to shape development plans
- scrap home information packs
Bob Neill
MP for Bromley and Chislehurst, deputy chair of the Conservative Party and shadow planning minister
Key quote: ‘We have to redefine affordable housing in much more realistic terms.’
Wants to:
- introduce ‘open source planning’,‘so that communities can shape themselves’
- scrap next round of proposed unitary local authorities
- let it be known that he backs city regions - tentatively
Baroness Sayeeda Warsi
Shadow minister for cohesion and social action
Key quote: ‘End the politics of us and them and put integration at the heart of our policy’
Believes:
- ‘Labour’s reliance on multiculturalism has failed.’
- ‘For us there is religious pluralism’
- ‘It is madness to translate documents into multitude of languages instead of teaching people English’
- ‘The fight against extremism will not succeed if communities do not feel that they belong and have an equal stake in the community.’
Justine Greening
MP for Putney, Southfields and Roehampton and shadow CLG minister, responsible for local government finance
Key quote: ‘It’s going to be very exciting when Caroline [Spelman] is secretary of state.’
Wants to:
- maintain local government grant (dismisses talk of reducing the grant as ‘scare-mongering’)
- work with councils to implement council tax freezes
- scrap comprehensive area assessments
- scrap the local authority Standards Board for England
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