Decentralisation enthusiast Clark replaces Pickles at DCLG

Mr Clark, who has previously served in a number of roles including minister for decentralisation and minister for cities, was announced as Mr Pickles’ replacement by prime minister David Cameron today.

The MP for Tunbridge Wells has a long-standing interest in decentralisation and devolution. In 2003, when he was director of policy for the Conservatives, the party’s policy unit published Total Politics: Labour’s Command State, an influential critique of centralisation edited by Mr Clark.

He was tasked with developing the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government’s work on localism following the 2010 general election. He criticised the National Trust in 2011 after the conservation charity raised fears that the government’s planning reforms would threaten the green belt. Mr Clark branded the National Trust’s claims ‘risible’.

Mr Clark, a former member of the Social Democratic Party, is seen by some as being on the left wing of the Conservative Party. In 2006 he wrote an article for the Guardian in which he argued that Conservatives should tackle ‘relative’ as well as ‘absolute’ poverty, saying the party should adopt the ideas of social commentator Polly Toynbee, rather than those of Winston Churchill.

Mr Cameron earlier announced that Iain Duncan Smith would continue in his role as secretary of state for work and pensions, continuing his role in overseeing welfare reform, including the roll-out of universal credit.

Labour announced today that Emma Reynolds has been promoted from shadow housing minister to shadow secretary of state for communities and local government.