Election topples ministers with business briefs

The toppling in the General Election of a number of Conservative MPs, who had held junior ministerial positions, has got a number of business sectors pondering on the implications for them.

Chief (Taiwan OTC: 3345.TWO - news) among these was Gavin Barwell, the former housing minister, who had been defending a wafer-thin majority in Croydon Central.

Mr Barwell, who had been at the forefront of government efforts to tackle the housing shortage, was the brains behind the Housing White Paper published in February.

He has won respect from the property sector for championing reforms to the planning regime, for encouraging developers to complete schemes more rapidly and for beefing up rules requiring councils to come up with detailed plans on how they would free-up land to solve the housing shortage in their local areas.

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Other policies that Mr Barwell was hoping to implement included strengthening the rules around compulsory purchase, again with an eye to speeding up housing development, while he was also promoting a relaxation of the rules governing the size of new-build flats as another way of stopping young buyers from being priced out of the market.

While unafraid to stand up to the big housebuilding firms, Mr Barwell had won their respect, for example by championing the kind of 'modular construction' - a modern version of the pre-fabs that helped ease the housing crisis immediately after the Second World War - proposed by the likes of insurer Legal & General (LSE: LGEN.L - news) , housebuilder Berkeley Homes and the developer Urban Splash.

Without Mr Barwell to champion this agenda, there may now be some slippage, as acknowledged today by Ian Fletcher, director of real estate policy at the British Property Federation.

He said: "We are sad to see Gavin Barwell losing his seat. In a relatively short space of time, he had shown himself to be very clued up on the sector and its challenges, keen to do things and very much a pragmatist.

"New (KOSDAQ: 160550.KQ - news) ministers should adopt the White Paper and maintain momentum on delivering the homes we need."

Among other ministerial casualties with a close business involvement were Simon Kirby, the former City minister and Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who was beaten in Brighton Kemptown and Jane Ellison, the former Treasury minister, who lost in Battersea.

Mr Kirby had worked closely with the pensions and savings industry, for example, promoting increases to the ISA allowances, as well as the new Investment Bond launched recently by National Savings & Investments.

However, he lost responsibility for overseeing the impact of Brexit on financial services earlier this year amid speculation that a number of leading City figures had little confidence in his ability to fight the industry's corner in government.

One concern raised by his exit is that the timetable for introducing the 'pensions dashboard', the project aimed at enabling workers to see more easily information related to their various pensions schemes in one place, may now slip.

Ms Ellison, meanwhile, had been involved in initiatives including a clampdown on tax avoidance - although she may not be mourned by all in business as she was involved in the introduction of the controversial soft drinks levy that will see an additional tax of up to 24p slapped on a litre of fizzy drink.

Business leaders have plenty enough to worry about given the uncertain outcome of the general election and the imminent start of Brexit negotiations.

They will be hoping that replacements for the likes of Mr Barwell, in particular, will be as good as the ministers they succeed.