New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has completed her first frontbench team, naming Kevin Hollinrake as shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities.
Hollinrake has been the member for Thirsk and Malton since 2015, and was briefly minister of state in the department for business and trade between March and July this year.
Prior to that, he was a parliamentary under secretary of state in the business department between 2023 and 2024.
His new task will be to scrutinise the government’s housing and planning reforms, which it has put at the heart of its drive for growth.
A key plank of that is to build 1.5 million homes over the next five years. Over the last five years the country built around 1 million homes.
An immediate task will be to review Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which is tougher than tenant’s legislation that ran out of time at the end of the last parliament before the general election in July.
The current Bill, which has already completed its second reading stage, plans to ban Section 21 no-fault evictions, limit rent increases to once a year and apply the Decent Homes Standard to the private rented sector for the first time.
The Conservative Party’s current housing and planning policies, under its election manifesto, leave clear blue water, between it and the government.
Its housing plans assured no building on the green belt, while the government allows for building on “poor quality and ugly areas” parts of the green belt, which it labels, the grey belt.
The former government had proposed to loosen planning reforms under former housing secretary Micheal Gove, but he was forced to scrap these plans after Conservative backbenchers threatened to rebel in 2022.
Badenoch says: “Our party’s problems will only be solved with a team effort, and I am confident my shadow cabinet ministers will deliver effective opposition as we seek to win back the trust of the public.
“We will now get to work holding Labour to account and rebuilding our party based on Conservative principles and values. The process of renewing our great party has now begun.”
The Conservatives have 121 MPs to pick from – while the government has 124 on its payroll – which limits the talent Badenoch can pick from.
