Recent months have been difficult for Conservatives, particularly in local government. We lost some great Conservative councillors during the local elections in May, and we experienced an incredibly gruelling general election campaign.
Our recent defeats will make us stronger as a movement as we start to rebuild the party and the local government family.
Despite the results, I am delighted to see several newly elected Conservative MPs with local government experience in the House of Commons, including former council leaders and councillors with strong connections to the LGA.
So, I want to give a special shoutout to Lewis Cocking, Bradley Thomas, Blake Stephenson, Gregory Stafford, Rebecca Smith, Andrew Snowden, Joe Robertson, Jack Rankin, Rebecca Paul, Ashley Fox, Peter Fortune, Charlie Dewhirst, Aphra Brandreth and Peter Bedford.
Over the coming months, the LGA Conservative Group will be working tirelessly to engage with potential Conservative leadership election candidates in our mission to reset the relationship between the parliamentary party and Conservatives in local government.
For far too long, we have suffered an unequal relationship and now is the best time to reset that relationship. The LGA launched its Local Government White Paper during the general election campaign, outlining how an incoming government can start to do that.
I fully stand behind that white paper and I look forward to seeing so many of the new Labour MPs who stood by that white paper lobbying the new Labour Government to get some of those proposals onto the statute book.