4 min read
Gareth Davies, the Conservative MP tasked with rebuilding the party’s support among young people, believes Kemi Badenoch’s plan to repeal climate change legislation could prove to be popular with them.
One of the defining features of the heavy Tory defeat was last year’s general election was how poorly the party performed with young people. According to YouGov research published shortly after the election, just eight per cent of people between 18 and 29 voted Conservative, while right now the average Tory voter is around 63 years old, the same pollster estimates.
Senior party figures have acknowledged the severity of the problem. In a speech in June, shadow chancellor Mel Stride said “young voters have simply stopped listening to us”.
Speaking to PoliticsHome ahead of Conservative Party conference, which begins on Sunday in Manchester, Davies said focusing on how to fix young people’s finances would be key to the party’s future. The shadow minister is working with young Conservatives, aligned think tanks and groups like Next Gen Tories to create a policy programme that appeals to younger voters.
“Young people want a stake in the economy. They want a roof over their heads that they own. They want the government to be out of their lives. They want lower taxes,” he told PoliticsHome.
He added that Badenoch’s policy of repealing the Climate Change Act “could be popular” with younger voters, as it will help lower the costs they face.
“Some of the approach that has been taken in the past under our party, but also has been turbocharged in the Labour government, is to increase taxes, to increase costs because of long-term green targets that are disproportionate and out of sync with most people’s day-to-day lives,” he told PoliticsHome, adding: “So, it could be popular, yes.”
The 2008 law, brought in under former Tory prime minister David Cameron and strengthened by his successor Theresa May, committed the UK to reaching net zero by 2050.
Badenoch has said that while climate change exists and must be dealt with, she believes current climate goals are “destroying more jobs than they are creating” and “bankrupting our economy”.
May condemned the policy in strong terms on Thursday, describing it as a “retrograde” idea.
“To row back now would be a catastrophic mistake for while that consensus is being tested, the science remains the same. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to ensure we protect the planet for their futures and that means giving business the reassurance it needs to find the solutions for the very grave challenges we face,” she said.
Davies, who is Shadow Financial Secretary to the Treasury, said “clearly there are electoral impacts” if the party is unable to bring young people back.
That’s why, he said, the party would focus on the biggest challenges facing under-40s in the UK as it fleshes out its policy offer, “whether it’s on savings, whether it’s on investments and pensions, whether it’s on real wages, or whether it’s on house buying”.
He told PoliticsHome: “Of the research that we’re doing and the engagement they’re doing, the problem is stark, and it goes back not just 10 years, but it goes back a multi-decade period that all parties need to be addressing right now, for the future decades.”
He does not accept, however, that recent Tory governments failed in these areas.
“I don’t think I would quite put it like that,” the Conservative MP said, citing several “headwinds” the party had been dealt while in office, including the pandemic.
While reluctant to discuss specific policies the party could put forward, he said the Tory offer to the country should focus on ensuring young people don’t feel like they have to leave their hometowns to build a life.
“I personally would like us to see a policy agenda that’s focused on regional investment, regional infrastructure investment, house building, making sure that when people grow up in different parts of the country, whether it’s Grantham or Leeds or Manchester, they feel that they can stay in those cities and those towns because they’re the jobs, there’s the infrastructure and there’s the homes for them to stay own and raise a family there,” he said.
He dismissed, however, that the party’s association with Brexit is an obstacle to rebuilding support with young people.
“A lot of people have moved on, and I don’t think it’s as strong an issue as it was back in 2016 or even just before that,” Davies said.
