David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary, and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.
Imagine, for a moment, being a Conservative Member of Parliament. At one level, you are one of the lucky ones. Unlike two thirds of Tory candidates defending a seat, you won. You still have the letters MP after your name, you still have a salary, you still work in a magnificent (if dilapidated) Palace, you still have access to the Tea Room’s excellent jerk chicken.
But your party has been rejected, you face at least five years of the irrelevance of opposition, and in all likelihood your once safe seat has been turned into a knife-edged marginal.
Out of a sense of duty, even enjoyment, you may have been a diligent constituency MP. That might even be the reason why you survived the cull (that is almost certainly what you are telling yourself). But the requirement to keep your electors onside now very obviously becomes a matter of political survival.
Your constituents will have noticed the changed circumstances, too. Previously, they may have taken the view that anyone wearing a blue rosette round here was bound to win. If the local Tory MP paid attention to his constituency that was all very welcome but if they did not, there was not much that could be done about it because they would still win.
Now, however, the boot is on the other foot. If local opinion demands something, the MP had better be supportive.
Being in Opposition is probably new to you (only 20 of the current Conservative MPs were in Parliament before 2010). You will quickly learn that being in opposition is boring and unsatisfactory but, on the face of it, quite easy. To govern is to choose and inevitably some choices made by the government will be unpopular. When that happens, you can criticise it.
After all that time in government having to take responsibility, you might even find it liberating. There is no longer much pressure to find solutions to problems, you merely have to articulate the problems caused by other people’s solutions.
This brings us to planning. The Labour government has identified a problem, low economic growth, and a solution; planning reform. It has restored national housebuilding targets, ended the prohibition on onshore wind farms in England, granted permission to solar farms where applications were on hold, made it clear that it would call in more planning application refusals, and has ambitions to go much further, including by building new towns.
To the extent that stuff is happening at pace since the election, it is happening with planning reform.
For our Conservative MP, this might be something of a political gift. For every existing proposal there had been years of proper consultation; the views of local people were being respected; the reasons why the specific site for development in question might be sadly inappropriate were being fully considered… and nothing had been built.
Now, however, these Labour vandals have come in with their “man in Whitehall knows best” arrogance, ignoring local public opinion and exhibiting an awful willingness to “concrete over the green belt”.
Here is your chance to be high-profile and energetic, collecting email addresses (like your dear departed colleagues defending marginal seats used to do) and organising public meetings when people might actually cheer what you say.
As a Conservative MP (with – let us not forget – a small majority), there are two further political arguments which make it hard to resist going down this route.
First, other political parties will be making these arguments. The Liberal Democrats, however much they deny it, are NIMBYs par excellence. They combine their anti-development position with a bit of left-wing populism, complaining about others being in hock to developers who only want to build “executive homes” which “no one locally can afford to buy”.
(Both phrases cause me particular irritation. I suspect that most people who complain about “executive homes” live in, or aspire to live in, a four-bedroom family home with a garden that could be defined as an “executive home”. As for the “only build local homes for local people” argument, that does not sound very liberal.)
The Greens also try to compete on this agenda, having won a parliamentary seat in Suffolk by opposing the construction of pylons to facilitate greater use of offshore wind (climate change being an existential threat but not important enough to mar anybody’s views).
Second, when it comes to housing developments, you are not just going to be concerned about the unpopularity of the proposal with existing residents but the political views of the incoming residents. Build a new house in the Home Counties and there is a very good chance that the new occupant will be someone who has moved out of London – and the thing about people who live in London is that they are generally not in the habit of voting Tory.
(Of course, the Conservative Party could give some thought as to why people living in London do not tend to vote Tory, but that is a bigger question.)
Nearly every political survival instinct will suggest that Tory MPs should stand shoulder to shoulder with local residents in opposition to any new development. Aligning with the local campaigners appears to be irresistible.
But I nonetheless hope they resist it. We do need economic growth. A more liberal and deregulatory approach to planning reform can make a significant contribution to delivering it.
It is perfectly clear that our existing system makes it too hard to build, which in turn creates unnecessary cost and uncertainty that hampers business investment. For those of us who consider that the centre-right rather than the centre-left is usually better suited to deliver effective economic policies, it is an embarrassment that Labour has a much more pro-business and pro-growth stance than the Tories.
There is also a question of generational fairness. Our anti-development culture suits those who own their own homes and have financial security. Those looking to get on the housing ladder, seek new employment opportunities, and have a stake in the strength of the economy in 30 years’ time are too often overlooked.
As a matter of long-term political viability, if the Tories continue to be seen as aligning themselves with those who are essentially denying opportunity to younger generations, the political future for the party is bleak.
This leaves Conservatives with an appalling dilemma. Fail to back local residents in their opposition to new developments and existing seats become at greater risk. Be seen as the party of NIMBYs and you will only consolidate the existing hostility of younger voters, and be on the wrong side of an important economic debate.
There is no simple solution. Recognising the sensitivities (I represented a leafy Home Counties seat for 14 years), there nonetheless has to be an acceptance of new developments, including a pragmatic approach to the greenbelt. What local Tories should argue for, however, is that the bulk of the economic benefit from new development should be captured and then reinvested in those areas where the development is happening.
This might mean cheaper energy for those living near new solar or wind farms. There should be greater investment in transport infrastructure, schools and healthcare where new houses are being built. We could also see additional land put aside for leisure use – new commons or parks – alongside new housing estates.
This will not assuage every protestor. But nor should Tory MPs try to do so. Just because pursuing NIMBYism will be the path of least resistance does not mean that it is the path that should be taken. We have just seen where it ends.