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Election 2010: Who's important in the Conservatives?
In this article we profile some of the key figures within or close to the Conservative Party that could be influential in the setting of future policy affecting the sector.
Nick Hurd
Current role: Shadow minister for charities, social enterprise and volunteering
Constituency: Ruislip-Northwood
Margin: Safe. Conservatives 47.7 per cent, Liberal Democrats 25.3 per cent. Boundaries, however, have been re-drawn since the 2005 election.
Biography: Oxford-educated Hurd belongs to a Tory dynasty, the fourth generation of his family to serve in parliament. His rise into the shadow Cabinet has come quickly, as he only entered parliament in 2005. Prior to that he had been chief of staff to MP Tim Yeo.
Before his life in the Conservative Party, Hurd worked in business running his own enterprise and then as a representative of a British bank in Brazil.
He is a trustee of the Hillingdon Partnership Trust, a grouping of businesses in the Hillingdon area which creates partnerships between local businesses and charities in need of funding.
Hurd is married with four children.
Areas of interest/Comments in parliament: Hurd is a keen environmentalist and has joined multiple parliamentary groups focused on climate change. He chaired the Climate Change group within the party’s Quality of Life Commission and also served on the Joint Parliamentary Committee for the Climate Change Bill. He is also member of international political party-groups focused on climate change.
He sponsored a Private Members’ Bill, the Sustainable Communities Act, in 2006 and has frequently questioned the spending and contract decisions of the Secretary of State on Energy and Climate Change in parliament.
Hurd was especially critical of the government’s withdrawal of the £750,000 campaigning fund last November, noting the move had created “real anger in the sector”.
However, in April last year Hurd had criticised the fund in response to a question by Civil Society. “Campaigning is a valid activity for charities but only if it serves their charitable purpose. This small fund [the £750,000 campaigning fund] looks like yet another example of gesture politics. It does not meet the real priorities of charities struggling to maintain services in the recession,” he said.
In parliament he has indicated he is inclined against scrapping tax reliefs for higher-rate taxpayers who give to charity.
Following the Icelandic bank collapse, Hurd proposed that government offer temporary loans to charities which had lost money in the crisis.
Committees: He has served on the Environmental Audit Committee and on the all party parliamentary group for small business, penal reform and Brazil.
Voting record: Hurd is extremely loyal to party policy in his voting record. He absented from a vote on Equality Act (Sexual Orientaion) Regulations and voted against bills requiring a male role model in fertility treatments. He has either absented or voted for all bills on climate change action since 2007.
Francis Maude
Current role: Shadow minister for Cabinet Officer
Constituency: Horsham
Margin: Safe. Conservative 49.1 per cent, Liberal Democrat: 27.9 per cent.
Biography: If re-elected this year, Conservative Party Chairman Maude could end up serving more than three decades in Parliament. The former barrister first entered parliament in 1983 under the leadership of Margaret Thatcher.
Under Thatcher and John Major he held a number of cabinet positions, including minister of state for employment and minister for corporate and consumer affairs at the Department of Trade and Industry.
Areas of interest/comments in parliament: Maude was highly critical of the government’s move to remove charities’ exemption from paying public performance rights, saying the measure could cost the sector £20m.
He has also been critical of the Government’s volunteering programme, which he has dubbed a “flop”.
The voluntering charity v is a particular bugbear of Maude’s, who said in a 2008 debate – after having visiting a v project – “I went with the most open mind in the world, but I could not see anything being done that would not otherwise have been done.”
Committees: Not a member of any committees
Voting record: Maude occasionally votes against the Conservative line in Parliament. He has voted six times against a hunting ban. He voted repeatedly against the formation of NHS foundation hospitals.
Others to watch:
Harriett Baldwin
Conservative candidate for the safe Tory seat of West Worcestershire, is deputy chair of the Social Investment Business and chair of the Futurebuilders investment committee. A career financier who was until recently a managing director at the investment bank JP Morgan, Baldwin joined David Cameron’s party in July 2006 to stand as a candidate in what was Sir Michael Spicer’s cosy Conservative seat.
Zac Goldsmith
Society figure and former Ecologist magazine editor Goldsmith has made his name as an environmental campaigner since taking the helm of the magazine, owned by his uncle, at the age of 22. Now 35, he joined the Conservative Party in 2005 and has quickly been led to senior positions on different party policy groups, now standing as its candidate in Richmond Park.
He was awarded the Beacon Prize for Philanthropy in 2003, at which time he was estimated to have contributed to raising $5m for campaigns on a variety of issues. He and his brother established the Manuka Club, a charity providing a donor network for people wanting to fight against losses to the British countryside. He also established Farm.org, a network joining farmers, consumers and environmentalists in the cause of sustainable agriculture. He is also a trustee of the Royal Parks Foundation.
While he espouses the same community agenda as the rest of his party, Goldsmith is clearly focused on environmental issues, having released a book, The Constant Economy, about creating an environmentally sustainable society.
Goldsmith attracted widespread criticism late last year when it was revealed that he had a non-domicile status for tax purposes, a status he inherited from his billionaire father – along with a substantial personal fortune. He was attacked further last month over donations he made to the Conservatives though an administration service.
Philip Blond
Former theology lecturer Phillip Blond is not a Conservative MP or candidate, but has been described as David Cameron's policy wonk. Following the publishing of a number of articles, notably Rise of the Red Tories in which he advocated a communitarian civic conservatism, Blond took on a job heading up the New Labour-aligned think tank Demos. He left Demos last year to set up his own think tank, ResPublica, last year and is currently a fellow of Nesta (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts).
ResPublica has quickly become very influential, with some of Blond’s papers echoing through David Cameron’s speeches over the past year.
Blond advocates an anti-Thatcher conservatism; one which contends that the private sector monopolies created by neoliberalism are as bad as the state monopolies which preceded them. His focus on reviving civic engagement and local communities and rolling back government have gained traction on both sides of the floor. He is currently writing a book entitled Red Tory.
Shaun Bailey
Conservative candidate for Hammersmith, is not your average Tory. The black founder of youth charity My Generation put himself through a computer-aided technology degree at London South Bank University by taking on security guard shifts. He has been a youth worker for 20 years, was an army cadet for ten and a gymnast for 20 years.
But in the political priority stakes, Bailey is all New Conservatives. He is campaigning on a highly local agenda, ranging from post office closures to night-time safety in his constituency. He has also identified four priorities: family, community, personal responsibility and respect – all of which sync perfectly with the Tories localism agenda.
Robert Walter
The Conservative candidate for North Dorset was an international banker and sheep farmer before entering parliament in 1997. He is a president of the European Security and Defence Assembly and vice-chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee, part of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
In terms of involvement with charities, in 2007 Walker launched the Dorset Actionnaires sports and physical activity club for blind and partially sighted children and teenagers, created by Action for Blind People, part of a network of 25 other clubs across the UK. He is also the treasurer of the all party parliamentary group on the community and voluntary sector.
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