As befits a man who at 6ft 7 inches is Britain's second tallest MP, Simon Clarke has a sizeable task ahead of him.
The new secretary of state for levelling up, housing & communities judged the Conservative leadership contest to his advantage by backing Liz Truss at an early stage over his former boss at the Treasury, Rishi Sunak. In a Cabinet consisting almost entirely of Truss campaign supporters, it came as no surprise to see Clarke rewarded with a senior job in Government but what can we expect from him?
For starters, we can expect a significant share of his time to be focused on delivering the Government's levelling up agenda. Under Michael Gove, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) began to put flesh on the bones of precisely what is meant by this often repeated but frequently misunderstood phrase in the Levelling Up White Paper published in February 2022. It will now be Clarke's task to oversee the implementation of the Government's levelling up strategy to improve skills, employment, infrastructure and life chances in historically disadvantaged areas of the UK.
During his previous time in the department, Clarke has shown himself to be a strong supporter of this agenda and as a Teesside MP he appreciates the political consequences of implementing it more than most. Countless Conservative MPs representing Red Wall constituencies are increasingly nervous about the chances of extending their Parliamentary careers with a General Election widely thought to be only two years away. Clarke is under significant pressure from day one to deliver some tangible quick wins for these MPs to sell to their constituents.
During his time as minister of state for regional growth and local government, Clarke was one of few MPs to publicly support the proposed planning reforms and by instinct he will wish to support economic growth through increased house building. However, planning reform under the first term of the Truss administration is unlikely to mirror Robert Jenrick’s proposals due to concerns about how large-scale redesignation of the Green Belt will be viewed in the Conservative’s Southern heartlands especially by the Party's core supporters. We may see some tinkering around the edges but widespread changes to the planning regime seem more likely after the next General Election regardless of who emerges victorious.
One area we can expect to see further change under Clarke is around the structure of local government. In a speech Mr Clarke made in July 2020 he stated that the devolution and local recovery white paper, which was ultimately not published following his resignation from Government, would ‘redefine the way in which local government serves its communities by establishing the unitarisation of councils as a vital first step for negotiating these mayoral devolution deals in the future’. Given the worsening constraints on the public finances due to Covid and the energy crisis stemming from the conflict in Ukraine, it appears very possible that Clarke will seek to revisit his plans to unitarise more areas of the country building on devolution deals such as that recently unveiled for the East Midlands.
With energy proving to be high on the political agenda, it will be revealing to see how far Clarke is prepared to go to unlock the planning regime for multiple forms of energy provision be that fracking, new nuclear and onshore wind. The latter remains deeply unpopular among many Conservative MPs however in an article for the influential Conservative Home website in September 2017 Clarke argued the case for lifting the moratorium on new onshore wind facilities. Indeed, Clarke has been a firm supporter of the Government's 2050 Net Zero target, a view not universally shared on the right of the Conservative Party.
Few would envy Clarke’s in tray but in his relatively short period of time in Government he has shown himself to be someone who is unafraid of facing up to challenges. In these uncertain times, his clarity of purpose may be just what is required.
Duncan Flynn is Director Northern Home Counties, at Cratus
