Councillors met new ministers at LGA events at the Conservative Party conference
Councillor Izzi Seccombe OBE is Leader of the LGA’s Conservative Group
As ever, party conference provided the ideal opportunity to catch up with friends and colleagues from across the country while also discussing the key topics of the day.
On the Sunday afternoon of conference, LGA Chairman Cllr James Jamieson and I were pleased to host the LGA’s ‘welcome’ reception.
As well as meeting informally with colleagues, this provided an ideal opportunity for Lee Rowley and Dehenna Davison, two newly appointed members of the ministerial team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), to introduce themselves to Conservative councillors.
It was great to hear Lee and Dehenna use their speeches to state how they were looking forward to working positively with the LGA and Conservative councillors in their new roles.
Many thanks to Paul Scully, the Minister of State at DLUHC, for also attending the event and speaking to many of those present.
The following day, I participated in the LGA’s fringe meeting, which was titled ‘Supporting communities through the rising cost of living and into economic recovery’.
This was, of course, a very topical discussion, and James and I were joined by Nick Park, Director at policy and research consultancy Public First, and John Park, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy at Google Cloud.
Many thanks to all those who came along and participated in the discussion, and particular thanks to Google for generously sponsoring the session.
On the Tuesday, I was pleased to co-chair the DLUHC ministerial question-and-answer session (which was sponsored by the LGA Conservative Group) with Cllr Philip Broadhead, the Chairman of the Conservative Councillors’ Association (CCA).
This closed political session gave us an opportunity to again engage with Lee, Dehenna and Paul, and for Conservative councillors from across the country to raise the issues that matter most to them.
I know those attending the session found it very useful to have this time with the new members of the ministerial team, and I would like to thank Lee, Dehenna and Paul for attending, and also Philip and the CCA staff for, as always, organising this event so well.
In addition to the events listed above, I was pleased to speak at and participate in a number of other fringe meetings and discussions at the conference as an LGA representative, as did a number of our Conservative LGA board members.
Participation in these events allowed us to engage with key stakeholders on a variety of topics, including levelling up, skills, economic recovery, the cost of living, opportunities for children and young people, transport and climate change.
I would like to thank my colleagues for representing the LGA so well at these events, and also the LGA’s public affairs team for both organising our participation and ensuring that we were all well briefed on the matters that we were discussing.
I left conference much more tired than when I arrived but having had a great time catching up with colleagues and participating in so many different and interesting discussions. I hope that all of you reading this who attended conference also had a good time and enjoyed the LGA’s events.