Let's be a property-owning democracy not a land of wage-slaves and renters

It's hard to find a better definition of what it means to be a Conservative than this:

We want a country which makes the fullest use of all its human and material resources to build a new prosperity. A country which uses that prosperity wisely and well, helping the elderly and those in need, providing new educational opportunity for our children, investing for the future as well as giving us a fuller life today. A country confident in itself, playing a full part in the world's affairs, accepting and meeting its responsibilities to others.

We want a society in which material advance goes hand in hand with the deeper values which go to make up the quality of life. A society which cares for its cities, towns and villages, its rivers, its coast, its countryside.

We want people to achieve the security and independence of personal ownership greater freedom of opportunity, greater freedom of choice, greater freedom from government regulation and interference. A responsible democracy based on honest government and respect for the law.

These values and the mission they encompass represent the timeless principles of Britain's Conservative Party. This particular version comes from the Party's manifesto for the 1970 General Election signed off by my old boss, Ted Heath but their origins go back to the origins of the modern party, to Robert Peel, Benjamin Disraeli, to the embracing of free trade and the extending of the franchise, to the idea - represented today by Robert Halfon and Tory Workers - that our over-riding purpose is to improve the condition of ordinary people. This is a soft, gentle, caring and polite party not one that speaks of 'traitors' or 'saboteurs', not one that runs campaigns to unseat good, hard-working MPs because you disagree with them on one particular issue.

I chose the 1970 Manifesto because it's the one that took us into the Common Market reminding us that our core values and purpose are not, and never have been, defined by the issue of Europe. Right now the issue seems so huge and important that it swamps everything but sooner than you think we will move on from it and have to, once again, look at how we make a better nation for British people. I hope we will do what we've done before and say loudly and clearly that we stand first and foremost for decency, good government, personal responsibility, trust, family and community. And at the heart of this, once again, we have to put the promise that Ted Heath made in 1970 and Margaret Thatcher made in 1979 - a promise that we will give ordinary people the chance for a real cash stake in Britain, that we'll be a property-owning democracy not a land of wage slaves and renters dependent on the state.

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Why house prices should be the number one concern of a Conservative government

Housing is the largest expenditure item in the household budget. Higher house prices have a disproportionate potential to reduce the standard of living by consuming funds that would otherwise be available to purchase other goods and services. Even more concerning, high house prices, and related high rents, increase relative poverty, as many lower income households may have to forego basic goods and services because of higher housing costs, and may even be forced to seek public housing subsidies.

Worsening housing affordability and its adverse impact on the declining standard of living threaten one of the greatest human advances in history – the democratization of prosperity.

In 1959, 1970 and 1979, Conservative leadership set out the aim of creating a property owning democracy with the private ownership of housing at the heart of that promise. In broad terms, though building, liberalising finance and through right-to-buy, those Conservative leaders - Macmillan, Heath, Thatcher - delivered on that promise.

Today that promise needs renewing. The answer to the housing pain of younger people doesn't lie in rent controls, council housing or build-to-rent, the answer lies in setting out how ordinary working families can buy a house. We've made some progress though protecting right-to-buy (although failing to extend it to the wider social sector is a disappointment), reducing stamp duty and Help to Buy. But these instruments don't change the fundamentals for too many people in London, houses are too expensive to buy. This expensiveness is a function of land prices not the cost of building a house and the way to reduce land prices is to make more land available for housing in places where people can live and work (or commute to their work).

In the short term (getting that land supply up isn't an overnight task) a Conservative government should also abolish stamp duty for first time buyers, reform green belt regulation to allow small scale building on brownfield sites, support approaches aimed at reducing build costs, develop more flexible shared equity schemes, finish the job of reforming leasehold and give tenants first refusal (with a RTB discount) when landlords sell property. Other thoughts might include tenant ownership of social housing, reforming conveyancing, longer tenancies in the private sector, and a ringfenced 50% levy on land sales with value increases consequential on housing allocations (at least so long as that value is in the gift of the planning system).

It may be a step too far to simply abolish the green belt but we need to review its size and purpose. Simply opposing 'sprawl' because sprawl is bad can't be justified in an age of electric autonomous vehicles, improved mass transit and home working. Suburbia is socially beneficial and, if transport changes happen as we expect, will be less of an environmental concern. The economic case for densification - based on agglomeration as a driver of growth - needs challenging both because it is socially damaging but also because that economic case is based on removing the brightest from elsewhere and piling them up in the big city to produce.

If we do these things, the main reason for young (and not-so-young) people's angst - not having a real, tangible stake in society - is removed and we once again deliver on the idea of a property-owning democracy that has been at the heart of British conservatism for 60 years.

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Let's stop watering down Corbyn's policies and offer a property-owning democracy again

There is a modicum of welcome introspection within my party. Questions about our values, purpose and mission are mixed in with less considered and more tactical debates about getting more support from young people or responding to what Brexit (and Corbyn) "means". Alongside this is a discussion about organisation - whether the party has the structure, membership and organisation to take a positive message to the electorate.

For me, and the apparent success of Corbyn's populism doesn't change this fact, the answer doesn't lie in contention or extremes but rather in consensus and moderation. Don't misunderstand me here, this isn't a rejection of ideology, but rather a recognition that policies drawn from our belief in freedom, community, neighbourliness and self-reliance have to chime with the values of people who we want to vote for us.

So let's start with those values rather than - as we see here from David Skelton - an approach based on opinion polling - little better than a list of bribes (higher minimum wages, housing subsidies, free tuition) aimed at attracting support. This is what we mean when we talk of populism and is precisely the programme that Corbyn espouses - rail nationalisation has big opinion poll support so we propose rail nationalisation. Students say they want free tuition so we give them free tuition. All paid for through another solidly opinion poll tested plan - increasing taxes on big business and "the rich".

What Skelton proposes is a return to what was once called Butskellism, a policy platform based on trying to have as close a policy platform to the other side as possible without quite abolishing any difference. Here's an example:

A reformed Toryism could address the growing disparity between capital and labour and encourage firms to empower their workers with shares and board representation. But that shouldn’t obscure the need for higher wages. The minimum wage should be increased when possible, and companies above a certain size should be expected to report on how they are moving towards paying the voluntary living wage (£8.45 in the UK and £9.75 in London).

If I'd replaced the first three words here with "a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn" no-one would have batted an eyelid. What we have is a policy platform founded on wording current Labour policies slightly differently and calling it "reformed Toryism":

a new generation of genuinely affordable, low-rent homes,

reducing tuition fees and concentrating the greatest attention on those from poorer backgrounds

hindered by cuts to in-work benefits and anti-trade union rhetoric.

All of this is good stuff but it does not give a single young person (or indeed older person) a solitary reason to switch from voting Labour to voting Conservative. All Skelton - and too many others on the left of my Party - is saying is "be more like Labour by proposing toned down versions of their policies".

So let's start instead with these values:

Wherever you go in the world you'll find people who hold as important such things as family, neighbourliness, independence, duty and effort. That you should work hard, contribute, look out for the neighbours, bring up your family as honest, self-reliant and care for those less fortunate.

And these are conservative values, the building blocks of community. None of them are about government, large or small. None of them see society as greater than the sum of its individual parts. And none of them are predicated on knowing better what is good for your neighbour.

Let's frame a policy platform beginning with the communities we want to represent rather than with centrally-directed proposals determined by opinion-polling. Let's talk about community, about how health, social care, good jobs and much else start with the places we live in rather than with the Bank of England, International Monetary Fund and National Health Service. I like it when Skelton talks about people having a stake, although he makes the mistake of talking about "the economy" rather than "society". As conservatives we need to renew the offer we made repeatedly - in 1959, 1970, 1979 and 1992 - do the right thing, play your part, get an education, work hard and you will have a stake in society. Right now overpriced housing, the pillage of pension funds and disincentives to invest mean that people, especially younger people, struggle to see how they're to get that stake in society - the real cash stake we all believe we were offered.

I'm pretty sure this means some tough choices about policy but we start by renewing the offer - to everyone - of a property-owning democracy. To get there we've to have some tricky converstaions about green belts, care for the elderly and the balance between taxing what we earn and taxing what we spend. We've to embrace the idea of family again - not as some sort of mythical Oxo advert image but the messy, complicated and varied things that are the reality of our lived experience as families. And, above all, we need to start talking about community and getting the decisions about care, health and social support down to that basic building block. You only need look at the benefits system - which can't process a claim in less than seven weeks leading directly to destitution - to see how centralised, national systems really don't work.

I've said before that we should start, as conservatives, with caring about what's right outside our door. It's dull, I know - soft loo paper conservatism as a university colleague called it - but most people are not either interesting in or impressed by fancy dan utopian solutions. Don't get me wrong, we'll respond to a straightforward bribe - free stuff paid for by taxing anonymous others - but conservatives have usually been better than this and, when we are, we change the world for the better.

We won't win by offering watered down versions of Corbyn's policies but by renewing the offer we made to my generation - an offer that was met - of creating a property-owning democracy. Let's do it.

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