Learnings and observations from Conservative conference fringes: Social housing, opportunity and life sciences

Written by Michael Kane and Helen Stott from the Vuelio Political Team. 

Our blog last week highlighted that, despite the Labour leadership’s disciplinarian grasp on policy development, the fringes at last week’s Labour conference still proved useful in exemplifying the future challenges to be addressed and their potential solutions.

Contrastingly, the Conservative leadership have not had the same firm grasp on policy development – mainly because the leadership remains a vacuum, with the party currently engrossed in a leadership election. In this sense, the fringes at Conservative Party Conference may instead inform the prospective leadership contenders’ policy platform.

Considering how embryonic some of the policies that underpin the candidates are, and the unclear ideological trajectory of the Conservative party as a whole, the fringes at this year’s Conservative conference proved particularly pertinent.

‘Where next for social housing?’ by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

The Conservative party has a long history with social housing and housebuilding provision: the party supported Labour’s New Towns programme after the Second World War and even unveiled their own Expanded Towns programme in 1952. An ideological shift in the 1980s saw the party unveil the Right to Buy council houses and the transfer of social housing stock from local authorities to housing associations. From 2010 onwards, the previous Conservative government established numerous house building targets, housing strategies and attempts at planning reform. Nonetheless, the evidence shows plainly that, from 2010 to 2024, owning a home became harder, renting a home became more expensive, homelessness rose, and not enough houses were built.

With the above context in mind, this fringe by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation looked to consider the role of social housing in the Conservative party’s future policy platform. Former Minister of State for Housing and Planning Rachel Maclean observed how the social housing system is broken as she called on the Conservative party to consider its funding and who benefits from the system. Conservative backbencher Bob Blackman struck a similar reforming tone as he agreed with Maclean on the need for a rethink. He specifically argued for incorporating the right to buy as soon as the tenant enters social housing and invest all this money in building social housing to create a virtuous circle. Interestingly, this comes with the Government planning to consult in Autumn on reforms to Right to Buy and having already started to review the increased Right to Buy discounts introduced in 2012. Finally, Conservative councillor and Deputy Leader of the LGA Conservative Group Abi Brown called for Conservatives to be bolder when it comes to making the arguments for house building when local residents may be unsatisfied with the proposals. This follows concerns that former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Government submitted to localist concerns around mandatory housing targets.

The Labour party has looked to make housebuilding a vital component of their strategy to deliver economic growth – much has been made of their plans to build 1.5m new homes through planning reform, new towns, and ‘the biggest increase to social and affordable housebuilding in a generation’. With Labour having set their stall out so clearly, the Conservatives quickly need to build a coherent narrative on social housing – especially when this could enable them to reconnect with younger voters disgruntled by the poor prospect of home ownership.

‘Opportunity for all’ by NASUWT

If Labour have been clear on their aims for social housing and housebuilding, the same could be said of their plans for education. Speaking to this point, the title of this fringe organised by Teachers Union, NASUWT, even borrows Labour’s ‘opportunity for all’ slogan from their manifesto. This fringe then considered how the Conservatives should respond to Labour’s plans for education as a whole and the challenges the sector faces. Whether this be a school attendance crisis precipitated by COVID-19, the widening attainment gap across income and regional variables in England, a teacher recruitment and retention crisis, a crisis in SEND provision, or the uncertain future that further education faces with concerns around its funding settlement.

Edward Davies, Policy Director at the Centre for Social Justice, focused his remarks on the reasons for underachievement in school. Predictably and rightly, he attributed some of this to the school attendance crisis but he also argued that the rising number of children who do not have two biological parents at home is also a cause for concern. He condemned the fact that this issue does not seem to be part of the policy discussion. Whether a future Conservative leader puts this at the forefront of the education debate remains to be seen, with scars still remaining from former leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith’s focus on single mothers. In a forthright tone, the General Secretary of NASUWT, Dr Patrick Roach, condemned the prior Conservative Government for their poor relationship with education unions as he detailed that a rethink will be required if the Conservatives are to return to Government. Considering the fact that the leadership contenders unanimously condemned Labour’s ‘union paymasters’, this comment may not be taken on board.

Finally, the penal was rounded out by the Shadow Minister for Schools Gagan Mohindra whose comments reflect the conundrum the Conservative party face. His opening remarks featured a perhaps contradictory tone of explicating the challenges the education sector faces while defending the Conservatives record. Interestingly, he directly apologised for the lack of support provided on SEND provision. This encapsulates the reckoning the party faces on education policy between pursuing an apologetic or defensive tone, or even somewhere in between.

‘Boosting UK health and wealth through Life Sciences research’ by UCB

One of Wes Streeting’s first acts as Health Secretary was to declare the NHS ‘broken’ and to set the groundwork for a series of ‘radical’ reforms to the health service. Interestingly, the former Science Minister had some praise for the incoming Labour Government’s strategy. Reflecting on when he first joined Parliament in 2010, Freeman said his initial goal in politics was to tackle the ‘structural deficit’ that the UK has found itself in, with welfare and health spending set to rise year on year. Freeman argued that the life science industry is the only sector which is capable of reversing this trend and truly addressing the structural problems of the UK economy.

Unsurprisingly, Freeman had positive things to say about the Conservatives’ progress on life sciences while in Government, but he said ultimately they were not able to tap into the opportunities presented by the NHS. Politicians from both sides of the House have pointed out that our health service, with its huge resource of patient data, could present excellent opportunities for clinical research, is a huge site of underutilised opportunity. Freeman said that because Labour are the party that created the NHS they are the only ones that would be able to carry out the reform needed, and while the new Government’s long term plan for the health service won’t be published until next year, he said what he had seen so far was promising. This highlighted a possible site of consensus between the Conservatives and the new Labour Government.

What now?

While the leadership contest may have dominated the media headlines and the attention of most attendees of the conference, many of the fringe events in the periphery executive rooms, halls, and corridors of Birmingham’s ICC reflect the pervading challenges of economic and social policy in the UK. Importantly, these questions must be addressed by the future Conservative leader if they are to build a coherent ideological vision and policy platform to overcome their 2024 General Election result.

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