Tom Jones is Councillor for Scotton and Lower Wensleydale and author of the Potemkin Village Idiot substack.
How the choice of next leader will impact local government has barely hit the headlines of this Tory leadership race.
Over the 14 years of Conservative government in Westminster, the uglier sister of Conservative government everywhere else has become even less appealing; 13 years of mid-terms have cost the party thousands upon thousands of councillors. Following the steady loss of flagship councils like Trafford and Westminster, there is as much rebuilding to be done in county, city and town halls, as in the House of Commons.
Ignoring local government is a mistake. There has barely been a Ben Houchen speaking opportunity that has not gone by without someone pointing out that the Teesside Mayor is now the most senior elected Conservative in the country, and for good reason; following the Westminster wipeout, local government is set to become the stronghold of conservative government again. It is from there that we will draw our campaigning strength, our future talent, and the successful examples of Conservative government we will need.
I must admit a vested interest here; not only have I already declared my support for Robert Jenrick in this most august organ, I also owe my political position to him – not in the nepotistic sense of ‘parachuting in favoured sons and daughters’ which he rages against – but that as Secretary of State for Local Government, he signed off the Devolution deal that created North Yorkshire Council, the body on which I now sit.
In fact, it is his opposition to nepotism that is one of the many assets that make Jenrick the right man for local government. It goes hand-in-hand with his programme of party reform, of returning the Conservative Party ‘to the service of its members’. As he lays out in The Telegraph that means helping local associations to win elections, not badgering them for money. It means an end to the micro-managing of associations, it means getting candidates selected earlier, and it means keeping campaign managers in areas where they are needed, not just when there is an election.
In addition, Robert’s housing plan will strike a chord for councillors like me. In a few short weeks, Labour have discovered the secret to meeting housing targets we refused to acknowledge in 14 years; you can simply direct development to areas that don’t vote for you. Despite, as the Centre for Cities points out, the housing crisis being ‘primarily concentrated in the Greater South East of England such as London and Brighton’ and our towns and cities, Labour has slashed housing targets for high-density Labour-voting cities and compensating for this loss by dramatic and unjustifiable raises in rural, Conservative-led councils. Whilst housing targets for London, Birmingham & Leicester have been reduced, ours in North Yorkshire have increased by 211% per cent, giving us the third-highest housing target in the country.
In a recent speech outlining his opposition to this, Robert asked the pertinent question that even the most ardent of YIMBYs must be asking themselves; ‘Labour says we need more homes. I agree. But, I say back to them, why did you cut London’s housing target, but increased Redcar’s by 1,000 per cent? Why concrete over our countryside when the greatest economic benefits come from building them in our cities?’
As Housing Secretary, Robert’s White Paper on planning offered to address the fundamental problems with the planning system; protection for valuable green land, encouragement for more beautiful buildings, an overhaul of the planning system to make it quicker and fairer for builders, authorities and residents, and even zero-carbon ready homes. Robert’s plan would have delivered a Conservative home-ownership project of a scale not seen since Macmillan; the greatest project of urban densification in a generation, with neighbourhoods empowered with new, beautiful homes where people want to live.
Finally, Robert has credibility – and a plan – on immigration. This was our greatest failure in government and, if we are to regain the trust of the electorate, we must face up to our failure to deliver the lower immigration we promised first and foremost. This is a cross-party issue; as well as the millions of votes we lost to Reform, immigration was also the top priority for defectors to the Liberal Democrats. Building the bridge back to these voters starts with immigration; without restoring trust on this, the door to the 2019 electorate will remain shut.
But this is also a local government issue. Increasing immigration has placed a huge strain on councils – though some are feeling the strain more than others. Kent County Council, for instance – which has repeatedly warned it is at risk of bankruptcy – has warned that, after a High Court ruling said the authority had to keep taking on young migrants, despite its pleas it could not cope with the demand, that it ‘had so many young migrants in care that it had run out of capacity to carry out its statutory obligations to local children.’
Local government rarely hits the headlines. But we do not go into local government to grab headlines; we go into it to serve whatever little slice of this other Eden we call our own. Councillors must toil, and MPs must weep; but under Robert, our toil will be matched by the dynamic party machinery he proposes, rewarded by a clearer and cleverer supply-side approach to housing and lessened with a serious plan to reduce the pressure migration places on public services. He will make it right; it will be up to us to make it fight.
