Sir James Cleverly MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, CPC 2025 Speech

“Owning your own home should not be a luxury.

The Conservative Party is the party of aspiration.

We are the party that believes in reward for hard work.

So, when we see home ownership becoming a fantasy for many people.

When a home of your own is an impossible dream.

No matter how hard you work.

We know we must act.

And when Conservatives are in charge, we do act.

Remember it was the Conservatives cleared the slums in the 1930s.

Harold Macmillan built 300,000 homes a year in the 1950s.

And Margaret Thatcher made home ownership a reality for millions of people with the right to buy in the 1980s.

The point is we don't just have to look at the distant past.

Since 2010, Conservatives have delivered 2.5 million homes – a million of those in the last parliament alone.

Last year in the South East of England, and the East of England, Conservative-run regions, about 2.5 new homes were built per thousand people.

In London, run by Labour for the best part of a decade, 0.5 homes per thousand.

And so, what do those figures mean, for real people, for ordinary hard-working Londoners?

In 1980, the average London home cost £25,000, and that was about four times the average national salary.

Today, the average London house costs over half a million pounds.

And that is fifteen times the average salary.

That is Sadiq Khan's record of failure.

We should not, and we cannot, and we must not accept it.

But what did Angela Rayner do when she was Housing Secretary?

She gave Sadiq Khan a free pass.

She dropped the government's call-in for the London Plan.

And she cut London's housing target.

And what was the result? A mere 5,000 private homes are forecast to be built across the whole of London this year.

And that is against a target of 88,000 homes.

And Rayner's failure to deal with Khan's failure

Ends up by dumping that housing shortfall on rural Britain.

I've got a small confession to make, ladies and gentlemen.

I was actually looking forward to holding Rayner to account.

I was actually looking going toe to toe with a real firebrand of the modern Left.

Instead, I'm up against Steve Reed.

Steve “I'm not Wikipedia” Reed.

No Steve, you're not Wikipedia, Wikipedia can actually be useful.

And let's remind ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, Steve Reed is a man who has just spent the last year destroying family farms, so he can spend next year concreting over them.

He wears a baseball cap that says: Build, Baby, Build.

But in reality, it's Block, Baby, Block.

Because he said no to new homes being built in his urban London constituency where they are both needed and where they are wanted

And that's Labour all over, isn't it?

Slogans says one thing, their record showing something completely different.

And as for the Labour government's pledge of 1.5 million homes built by the end of this Parliament.

Either they are lying about how many homes they are going to build, or they're lying about how long this Parliament is going to last.

And what about these fabled Labour's new towns?

Initially, they said they're going to build twelve of them.

Then they said they only might start three during in this Parliament, and that is only if you count one spade in the ground as starting progress.

For me, it's like being promised a pony for Christmas, and ending up with goldfish.

Now, when I drive through London, when I come from my home in Essex to London, I see the Olympic Park. A brownfield transformed into homes and businesses.

By Boris, a Conservative Mayor of London.

I see Canary Wharf – derelict docks turned into homes and a world-class financial hub.

By Hessletine and Thatcher, Conservative government.

And that same story is true beyond London.

Ben Houchen in Teesside.

Paul Bristow in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

Conservative Mayors, rolling up their sleeves and getting stuff done.

And look, I know London isn't the only place that matters, we all understand that.

But the UK's biggest city does have a unique role to play.

And the Labour Mayor of London has not and will not get a grip of the situation, which is why we need a Conservative Mayor of London who will get a grip.

Because we need a Conservative Mayor to rewrite the London Plan, focus on delivery, and unlock tens of thousands of desperately needed homes in that city.

And unlock the near transport links, near to the night-time economy, and near to the job opportunities.

By prioritising brownfield sites and turning them into business and housing hubs.

Just like we did before in Canary Wharf and just like we did before in the Olympic Park.

Now to get this done we need to take on the mountains of well-intentioned regulation have got to be cut down to size.

We have affordable housing targets so high they basically prevent anything getting built.

And I wonder if the Steve Reed now in charge of housing will look back at the Steve Reed in charge of environmental regulation and have a word with himself?

Because we've made it too easy to say no to housing.

And we need to find reasons to say yes to housing.

We need to win the argument.

We need to make people want to say yes.

Now just so you know where I'm coming from, I reject the false choice between low-rise sprawl into the greenbelt and soulless tower blocks.

We can and we should build homes that are liveable, attractive, that are welcomed by their neighbours.

Because beauty in the built environment should not be the preserve of the wealthy.

It should be for everyone.

Building is important, of course it is.

But we must also make better use of the homes we already have.

I'm going to give you a scenario and I expect a few of you will recognise it.

In every town and city across the country, there will be roads full of empty nesters.

You know the kind of houses I mean?

Three, four, maybe even five-bedroom family houses.

Where the children have grown up and moved out and now just one or two people are living there.

I don't want to force anybody to leave the home that they love.

But we should make it easy for older couples to downsize, without punishing them with evermore property tax.

Because encouraging downsizing frees up a whole chain of homes, helping retirees, and bigger families, and smaller families, and first-time buyers all at the same time.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is just common sense.

And that is what should underpin Conservative housing policy.

Common sense.

Easing the burden of regulation, getting stuff built.

Easing counterproductive taxation that stops homes being bought and sold.

That is the Conservative answer,

But compare that with Labour's answer?

Even more taxes.

They are hiking council tax by more than £11 billion over this Parliament.

With more to come.

Through higher tax bands.

Through new taxes on family homes.

But we Conservatives know that you cannot tax your way to growth.

Real growth comes not from the state, but from its citizens and the communities that they build.

And strong communities need a smaller state, and we know strong communities matter.

Many of you in this hall today are councillors.

And you are on the frontline working in and for your local communities.

You are the manifestation of Conservative values that people actually see in the day-to-day lives.

And I want to thank you.

Because when I speak about the Conservative leadership, and I try not to do that so much these days.

I'm talking about the Conservative leadership in town halls, and county halls, and village halls.

Because Conservative councillors who improve their high streets.

Who stand up for local businesses.

Who defend community pubs, local parks, and village greens.

Who deliver leaflets late at night and early in the morning, whatever the weather.

Whatever the political weather, and whilst you deliver, other parties let their communities down.

Labour councils, taxes up, bins going uncollected. Over-taxing, under-delivering.

Lib Dems – hiking council tax to some of the highest levels in the country.

And Reform?

Well, being angry about stuff doesn't get bins collected.

Or get schools run better, or parks maintained, or old people cared for.

Because being a keyboard warrior doesn't prepare you to manage multi-million-pound council budget.

That is why they are failing and infighting wherever they get elected.

So, let Reform chase the clicks and likes online, and let real Conservatives serve their communities.

In our Party, we understand the difference.

But we must understand why so many people are angry.

And rather than just reflect that anger back to them, we look to do something about it.

Because that's how you build policy, not just build press releases.

Because a Party that is ready to govern.

And communities built on unity, and not division. That is us.

And we also know that the scale immigration put unprecedented pressure on housing provision, and on our neighbourhoods.

That's why I as Home Secretary took action to halve net migration.

Because people are angry when they see an immigration system that gives houses to asylum seekers whilst local families wait for years.

This madness has got to stop.

Conference, that is why we brought in the Rwanda plan that Labour scrapped as soon as they entered office.

That is why we have committed to leaving the ECHR so that we can prioritise the people of our country.

That is why we must have Stronger Borders.

That is why we must have a Stronger Economy.

Because simply building more homes is not enough.

We have got to cut immigration and we have got to rebuild our communities too.

Now, the foundation stone for successful communities is the simple fact that we all play by the same rules.

And that people who break those rules are punished and not rewarded.

Where no group, no group is above the law,

And where the laws are universally applied.

Communities where hard work is rewarded.

Where pride in place, pride in country, is valued and praised, not vilified and mocked.

A tradition of free speech.

And yes, that does mean the right to offend – but the right to offend is not the same as a duty to offend.

Because we do have a long-standing tradition of decency, politeness, and good manners.

But we don't need to turn that tradition into law, which is why blasphemy laws have no place in the United Kingdom.

The cherished right of freedom and religion must be protected.

And protected robustly, by all of us.

Protected with the strength of the Jewish men and women who held that door shut at the synagogue, on Yom Kippur, here in Manchester just last week.

Because warm words or empty symbolism will do nothing to keep people safe.

That is why when I was Home Secretary, I overruled officials to ensure record funding to protect the security of Jewish communities.

But we must do more to tackle the growing challenge of antisemitism in this country.

Much, much more.

With the strength of our words and our actions.

And as we see Labour councils bringing in anti-Israeli boycotts and divestment in a cynical, sectarian attempt to win votes, we should recognise what it is and call it out for what it is.

Conference, Labour is currently trying to jump on a patriotic bandwagon.

Starmer is trying to wrap himself up in the union flag.

When reality is he is an emperor with no clothes.

Labour is not fooling anyone.

Did you see it? Did you see it at Labour Conference in Liverpool?

You could see it on their faces.

They were forced to wave a St. George's flag and a Union flag with gritted teeth.

And Andy Burnham scuttling out via the backdoor.

Starmer allegedly opposes division.

Frankly, he can't even unite his own party, let alone the country.

And it is his party that's the one that's pushing identity politics.

It is their misplaced ideal of multiculturalism that leads to parallel cultures rather than integrated communities.

The Conservatives have always been, and will always be, the party of patriotism.

And more than that, we know the formula for success.

Multi-ethnic communities, of course yes.

Diverse religions within communities, yes

But an adherence to the norms, and to the values, and to the laws of our country.

That is how successful, integrated, sustainable communities are built.

And that is what we should work towards.

Bringing society together across class, across colour, and creed.

That is how we build trust.

That is how we build strong neighbourhoods.

That is how we make Britain a home for everyone who is willing to play their part.

Conference, I was chuffed when Kemi asked me to take on this role.

Because fixing our housing crisis and restoring pride in our communities are two of the biggest challenges that we face.

And the simple truth is Labour does not want to fix these problems.

And Reform cannot fix these problems.

But we can and we will.

We will build more homes.

We will build stronger communities.

We will build stronger borders.

We will build a stronger economy.

And we will restore pride in this great country once again.