Who’s in and who’s out in the new parliament?

Posted: July 8, 2024 | Author: julesbirch | Filed under: Housebuilding, Planning | Tags: Election 2024 |Leave a comment

Originally written as a column for Inside Housing.

It’s all change for housing at Westminster after a stunning election victory for Labour. More than half of the MPs who will be sworn in this week are new to the Commons while decades of experience on the green benches were swept away in the Conservatives’ worst defeat of the modern era. 

Just about the only continuity so far came with confirmation that Angela Rayner will step across from her shadow role to become the new deputy prime minister and secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities and minister of state while former shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook will be one of her ministers of state.

That promises well with a busy agenda to come. Despite the implication that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) will keep the title it was given under Boris Johnson, there is speculation that a new name is imminent. 

James Riding has already introduced many of the new MPs on the Labour side, while the Labour Housing Group focussed on eight of them on Red Brick ahead of the election, but it’s worth highlighting some of the results that have extra resonance:

Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield): There are two big reasons to start here. First, because Lewin worked for Clarion for seven years, most recently as director of communications, second because of who he beat. Grant Shapps was the first and longest-serving housing minister since 2010 and associated with many of the most contentious changes under the coalition. He was the minister responsible for ending top-down housebuilding targets and the creation of the New Homes Bonus and was also a supporter of ending lifetime tenancies and defender of what he called the removal of the spare room subsidy.

Dan Tomlinson (Chipping Barnet): Another double reason for celebration. First, the defeated Tory incumbent was Theresa Villiers, one of the leaders of the backbench rebellion that led to the Conservative retreat on housebuilding and planning that will now be reversed under Labour. Second, Tomlinson is an economist who has worked at the Treasury and most recently the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, so should be well placed to advocate for anti-poverty and pro-housing policies. He grew up on free school meals and was homeless for a time as a child. 

Sarah Sackman (Finchley and Golders Green): Taking Margaret Thatcher’s old seat of Finchley and Golders Green was a symbolic victory for Labour and winning in a constituency with a large Jewish population is seen as a vindication of Keir Starmer’s firm line on anti-semitism. A barrister specialising in planning and environmental law, expertise that could be very useful for this government, Sackman has acted for local authorities and charities such as Shelter. She also acted for residents in a case that saw a High Court judge quash planning permission for Curo no demolish and rebuild large parts of the Foxhill Estate in Bath.

Danny Beales, Uxbridge and South Ruislip: Taking Boris Johnson’s old seat after losing in the by-election last year was another symbolic result for Labour. Beales experienced homelessness, temporary accommodation and life in bed and breakfast as a child and was previously cabinet member for new homes, jobs and communities at Camden Council.

Other new Labour MPs from local government include Satvir Kaur (Southampton Test), former housing portfolio holder and leader of Southampton City Council, and Jayne Kirkham (Truro and Falmouth), a former Labour group leader on Cornwall County Council who sees housing as the number one priority for Cornwall.

The Liberal Democrats had their best result in terms of seats won in 100 years, with victories including the former constituencies of three Tory prime ministers: Maidenhead (Theresa May); Henley and Thame (Boris Johnson’s first); and Witney (David Cameron).   

Their most notable returnee is probably Andrew George, who won back the St Ives seat he lost to the Conservatives in 2015. Under the coalition, he sponsored a private member’s bill that came close to scrapping the bedroom tax only to be denied a money resolution by the government. 

The cataclysm on the Conservative side saw Simon Hoare, the former local government minister, left as the last man standing from the previous ministerial team at the DLUHC. 

Michael Gove stood down ahead of the election but saw his Surrey Heath seat fall to the Liberal Democrats, while housing minister Lee Rowley, levelling up minister Jacob Young and junior housing minister Felicity Buchan all lost to Labour. 

Rowley’s North East Derbyshire seat includes the town of Clay Cross, famous in housing history for its councillors’ rebellion over council house rent increases in the 1970s. 

With many MPs on the Tory side stepping down ahead of expected defeat and many more beaten on the night, there was an astonishing rate of attrition among former ministers with an association with housing.

Robert Jenrick is the only survivor from the seven secretaries of state who had responsibility for communities or housing between 2010 and 2024. He is now one of the contenders for the Conservative leadership.

Of the 15 Tories who went through the revolving door marked housing minister (Lee Rowley had two spells) over those 14 years, only two survive in the new parliament: Esther McVey and Kit Malthouse, who managed 19 months between them. 

Iain Duncan Smith, architect of universal credit and swingeing cuts in housing benefit under the coalition, surprisingly retained his Chingford and Woodford Green seat thanks to a split in the vote on the Labour side after the party deselected its previous candidate. 

Among Tory backbenchers, Bob Blackman bucked the trend of the 2024 election by retaining his Harrow East seat with an increased majority. A key member of the Levelling Up, Housing and Communities Committee in the last parliament, Blackman introduced the private member’s bill that became the Homelessness Reduction Act in partnership with Crisis in 2017. He is now running to be chair of the Tory backbench 1922 committee.

Many people in housing will be sad that Peter Bottomley, a prominent Tory supporter of leasehold reform, will not be in the new parliament to take part in debates on legislation to implement Labour’s pledge to abolish the ‘feudal’ tenure. After nearly 50 years in the Commons, he was beaten in Worthing West. 

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