Emma Revell is External Affairs Director at the Centre for Policy Studies.
Many people will be reflecting on their personal highlights from a successful Conservative Party conference. A well-delivered speech, a popular exhibition stand or making it back to your hotel before midnight like you promised yourself would all count as wins when the party heads to Birmingham en masse.
My highlight came very early on Tuesday morning when, at barely 8am, the incredibly helpful ICC staff were already corralling the small crowd of people who had turned up ready to join the Centre for Policy Studies’ panel on ‘Solving the Energy Crisis’.
The event didn’t start for another thirty minutes, but like every single one of the 16 public events we hosted across three days, people had turned up early to get in rather than risk being turned away. Our overflow corridor, complete with livestream TV showing our sessions, was well used throughout the conference as those who we couldn’t accommodate stuck around to make sure they caught the conversations.
I don’t share this to sound too arrogant – although the CPS has a commendable track record of hosting full conference programmes stacked with top drawer speakers and the volume of our events came second only to ConservativeHome’s Total Politics group – but to highlight how keen attendees were to discuss not just ideas, but solutions.
Our ‘Making Whitehall Work’ panel wasn’t a chance for former ministers and civil servants to bemoan the blob, but to share their experiences and ideas about what needs to change and how a future Conservative government should seek to achieve that change. The panels I chaired – on public health and on the future of the green belt – heard some insightful questions from the audience, wanted to know how we can prevent poor health outcomes rather than wait for them to occur then try to cure them, and how elected Conservatives can have honest and constructive conversations with voters about the need to build new homes while protecting our most beautiful green spaces.
The conversations chaired by our Director Liam Halligan, and former Director Robert Colvile didn’t feature prevarication. Katie Lam, Helen Whately, James Cleverly and Andrew Griffith didn’t come to bemoan the state of things blindly. They acknowledged the part the Conservatives have played in the situation Britain currently finds itself in, but also how Labour have accelerated our decline.
They set out clear plans for housing, for welfare, for London and for the economy as a whole. Whately and Griffith in particular went to lengths to point out that the plans announced thus far are just the start, and that there is more work to be done.
The specifics announced so far though have their roots in the CPS’ work. Perhaps the queues outside of Hall 7 were driven by the clear evidence on display of how much impact our ideas and research have on the Conservative Party’s policy platforms.
Removing the Aarhus Convention from our statute books should help build the infrastructure we need, as Ben Hopkinson and Samuel Hughes have argued in multiple publications. Both have also repeatedly highlighted the uselessness of Natural England and the Environment Agency, stepping well beyond their remits and seemingly to consider it their role to actively block any new construction. Ben’s latest paper ‘Lowering Infrastructure Costs’ also proposed replacing Section 106 obligations and the Community Infrastructure Levy with a simpler, combined levy, now Conservative policy.
When it comes to taxation, ‘Make Work Pay’ was a seminal report published back in 2018 which set out clearly why Brits should be allowed to keep at least 50p in every £1 earned. Supporting families at all stages means ironing out the cliff edges, including the high-income childcare trap facing earners closing in on £100,000 – something the Conservatives are right to push ahead with and which is by no means a tax break for the rich.
Reports like ‘Family Friendly Taxation’ also advocated for reform to inheritance tax, which Kemi Badenoch today made clear would be improved now, with full abolition only when the public finances allow. Badenoch also bemoaned the complexity of our tax system in her speech today. Earlier this year we – together with six other think tanks across the left and right – set out a range of revenue-neutral measures to improve the tax system without costing the taxpayer a penny.
I could go on.
The overarching focus of this conference has been on messages which the CPS has been at the forefront of communicating. That, for too long, it has been too hard to build the infrastructure Britain needs, that our tax system is absurdly complex and seems actively designed to make growth difficult, that public spending is on a trajectory so terrifying that nothing but serious restraint and reform can turn it around.
Pick up any report, read any comment piece, watch any media appearance by my current and former colleagues in the last decade and these messages will come through loud and clear.
I’ve seen some journalists saying Conservative Party conference was dull and flat. I can only assume by this they mean there were no arguments, no headline gaffes or blockbuster defections. Because what I saw was a party starting to have a very open conversation about detail. About a return to core Conservative values and the policy recommendations that flow from that.
I heard a senior Conservative once tell a story about how they had once been asked, back in the late Thatcher years, how they knew what all the party’s policies were. Had they been issued with a booklet containing them all? They said no: ‘Our vision and values were clear, and from that I can infer what our policies will be. ‘
That hasn’t always been the case with the Conservatives over recent years, but this conference may mark a returning point. Badenoch has indeed produced a pamphlet – not a manifesto but what the party calls ‘statement of Conservative principles setting out how the Party will govern Britain differently if returned to office’ – taking inspiration from Keith Joseph, co-founder alongside Margaret Thatcher of the Centre for Policy Studies, 50 years after his book ‘The Right Approach’ was published.
As CPS Director Liam Halligan said in response to Badenoch’s speech, ‘Britain’s problems are urgent – but we changed course fifty years ago and, as the Tories under Badenoch now clearly understand, with the right ideas, we can do so again.’
If conference is any indication, that will happen with ideas forged at the CPS.