I reported earlier this month on the appointment by Chris Skidmore of ten co-chairs to run the five taskforces which comprise his Policy Commission.
As Skidmore himself wrote on this site the other day, each of those five groups is in the process of being fleshed out further with MPs, peers and contributors from outside Parliament. Notably, each will feature the relevant Policy Chairs from the 1922 Committee – linking up different policy organs of the Conservative Party, and thereby hoping to garner ideas from every side as well as hopefully avoiding a repeat of 2017’s disastrous decision to adopt a deeply controversial policy without first consulting MPs.
Those new Parliamentary appointments have now been made, and we can reveal the line-ups are now as follows:
Economy
Chairs: Baroness Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Andrew Jones
Members:
John Redwood (1922 Committee Treasury Policy Board Chair)
James Heappey (1922 Committee BEIS Policy Board Chair)
Bim Afolami
Vicky Ford
Public Services
Chairs: Helen Whately, James Morris
Victoria Prentis
Jack Brereton
Global Britain
Chairs: Mark Garnier, Baroness Catherine Meyer
Alan Mak (1922 Committee International Trade Policy Board Chair)
Baroness Fiona Hodgson
James Gray (1922 Committee Defence Policy Board Chair)
Jack Lopresti
Fairer Society
Chairs: Maria Miller, Sir David Evennett
Eddie Hughes
Alex Burghart
Lord Shinkwin
Democracy
Chairs: Lord Norton, Marcus Jones
Matt Warman
Ranil Jayarwenda (1922 Committee Local Government Policy Board Chair)
Neil O’Brien
Applications to join each of the taskforces were open to all Conservative Parliamentarians. The three non-Parliamentary members of each will be announced at the Conservative Party conference next week.
For a recap of the topics each group is expected to focus on, see my original report on their establishment.