What Price Experience?

The image of a sodden prime minister calling a general election on the steps of Downing Street will live long in the memory - and, from a comms point of view, for all the wrong reasons.

It’s hard to fathom the reasoning behind the decision. Making the announcement indoors might have bucked precedent but it would have removed a distraction and saved a suit. Was there no one on hand of sufficient seniority and experience to change the plan in the face of a downpour? We’ll probably find out one day. After all, a lack of suitable experience is always a worry - not just for the optics of the election call, but for the next parliament too, irrespective of who forms the next government.

More than 120 serving MPs are standing down at the election. Some are relative newcomers, others have had little impact on the built environment, holding ministerial or committee positions that are concerned with matters that overlap little with bricks and mortar.

But a sizeable number of those leaving Westminster take with them decades of experience of planning and housing, the public sector estate and the intricacies of local government finance.

It starts at the top. Three secretaries of state responsible for representing planning and housing at the Cabinet table are leaving. We needn’t dwell on Sajid Javid’s three-month spell in post, but the other two matter more.

These days he may be far from this sector’s favourite Cabinet minister, but Michael Gove is the biggest beast to go. His impact will linger.

As important – more important, perhaps – is Greg Clark, another former communities and local government secretary, who is also leaving parliament. With Lord Heseltine he did as much as anyone to build the case for devolution and for metro mayors, already an integral part of public life.

Five former housing ministers are off too – a sizeable chunk of the 20 postholders since 1997. Dame Margaret Beckett is the only Labour postholder to step away; Conservatives Brandon Lewis, Stuart Andrew, Sir Alok Sharma and Dominic Raab are also quitting.

Several other former Conservative ministers who served in the various government departments that have overseen planning, housing and local government over recent decades are also stepping away: Dehenna Davison, Sir Bob Neill, Sir John Redwood and John Spellar are among them. Also exiting stage right are Paul Scully, also a former London minister of course, and Sir Paul Beresford, who led the flagship Wandsworth council during the Thatcher government.

That loss of local government experience matters too. It’s not just Sir Paul Beresford; Nickie Aiken, the former Westminster council leader, is going, as is Dame Margaret Hodge, the former Labour leader of Islington council.

Change happens, of course. But that loss of collective experience will be felt in terms of scrutiny and debate, not least because the next government will find their room for manoeuvre limited in terms of squeezed public finances.

It does, however, offer an opportunity for this sector to step up. Never have the links between housing, planning and growth been made so explicit in an election campaign. Never has there been a better chance for real estate to make a difference.