Greg Clark, MP Tunbridge Wells, interviewed
Above: The Conservative Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells, Greg Clark
Above: Greg Clark asking the Secretary of State for Health about Pembury Hospital in the House of Commons, which caused him to announce that he had given the hospital final approval
Above: Greg Clark, photographed in Tunbridge Wells
The Conservative Member of Parliament for Tunbridge Wells, Greg Clark, is on a bit of a high when we meet for coffee on the Pantiles. The news that west Kent is at last getting its new ‘super’ £227m hospital at Pembury is still very recent, and he is quite frankly elated.
“It’s a big celebration for everyone and such a relief after so many years of campaigning. This was probably the biggest public services issue in the area and it was clear it needed everyone to pull together and campaign, but especially in Parliament, as ultimately the decision lay with the Government and the Secretary of State for Health,” he says.
“It’s been a very long and a very, very winding road, so it was a real thrill to have it announced in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, over the last year, west Kent has become notorious across the country for the quality of its healthcare, but this is now a chance for us to be celebrated for our healthcare.
In Tunbridge Wells our quality of life is among the best in Britain but we have to fight to keep it that way
“When the hospital is built, it will be the best in Britain, the only NHS hospital with 100 per cent single-bedded, en suite rooms, state-of-the-art operating facilities, and much higher standards of infection control.
“We will have gone from the bottom of the league to the top of the league almost overnight, which will be fantastic. Before the Olympics come to London, our hospital will be open.”
School days
Greg, 40, came to politics full time only three years ago, but his interest dates from his school days at the local comprehensive in his home town of Middlesborough. “I remember thinking I was fortunate that I had managed to get into university, but that a lot of my classmates weren’t being stretched enough by the educational system. That made me very angry and made me want to do something about it,” he says.
After studying Economics at Cambridge University, Greg was awarded his PhD at the London School of Economics and went to work for the Boston Consulting Group, a leading business strategy firm. He was subsequently the BBC’s chief adviser on commercial policy.
Between 1996 and 1997, Greg served as the special advisor to the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, the Rt Hon Ian Lang, MP. It was to be a turning point in his career. “That period really opened my eyes and made me see that I was writing papers for think tanks, trying to influence the debate, but if you really wanted to make a difference, you needed to roll up your sleeves and get a seat round the table where the decisions are taken.”
The people in Tunbridge Wells are incredibly warm and generous, it’s a fantastic town with a great spirit
Greg became a local councillor and was appointed Director of Policy for the Conservative Party by William Hague in 2001, establishing and running a new Policy Unit modelled on the Downing Street Unit in its heyday. The timing was not to prove ideal.
“William Hague recruited me and said he hoped I would do the role for Parliament after 2001, but little did he know that he was going to resign shortly after that because of the election result. So I actually ended up working for three party leaders – William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard, in a very short space of time, which wasn’t exactly the plan,” he laughs.
I ask how Greg how his business career informs his political activity and he says: “Having worked at a senior level within companies and knowing how they are managed and run gives you an insight into what business needs and it helps to be able to do that from experience.
“However, if you are running a business, you can give orders to your staff to make things happen and you expect them to happen next day. That’s the wrong approach for a politician and a minister. I wouldn’t want the country to be run as if it were a business by a chief executive.
“My vision for the future of the country is that people should be taking control of their own lives and following their own talents and abilities, rather than following orders
from the boss.”
Business and politics
Greg, who was appointed Shadow Minister for Charities, Voluntary Bodies and Social Enterprise in the Department for Communities and Local Government team in 2006, and Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office eight months later, soon found that combining business and politics was extremely difficult. From the moment he came into politics, he made the decision to be a full-time MP.
He lives in the heart of Tunbridge Wells with his wife Helen and young family and is passionate about the town he represents. He tells me: “The first duty of an MP is to fight for the interests of his or her constituents and that is the most satisfying part of an MP’s life. I’ve always found it striking how much national issues are reflected locally – for example, the infection control in hospitals is a national problem with an application in Tunbridge Wells.
And social problems are high on his agenda, too. He says: “West Kent is not usually associated by people outside the area as having much in the way of social difficulties, but Tunbridge Wells, Paddock Wood and surrounding villages have pockets of social deprivation just as pronounced as in some of the London boroughs.
“It’s even more difficult for people who do face these problems in a town like this because we often don’t get the outside help that places more associated with deprivation get, so people miss out on the specialist help.
I wouldn’t want the country to be run as if it were a business by a chief executive
“It’s also quite an expensive place to be, so if you are struggling, you can’t work, perhaps through disability, and are relying on benefits, your pound goes less far in Tunbridge Wells than it does in other parts of the country.”
Greg has always taken a particular interest in standing up for people who have been ignored and giving them a voice. He cites Sherwood as a good example of a relatively deprived ward in the area that, through the combined efforts of the county council and the borough council, now has a brand new community centre with a library, a sports hall and a meeting place that brings the whole community together.
“The problems haven’t been eradicated, but I hope everyone in Sherwood realises that they haven’t been ignored,” he says.
The long dual
While Greg will long be remembered for his campaigning work for the new Pembury hospital, another local problem now becomes even more acute – the A21. “The fits and starts over the dualling of the A21 have been even more long drawn out and historic than the delays over the hospital and I think it’s crucial now that we are having the hospital that it does go up the priority list,” he says.
“The longer they leave it, the more it will cost – and there will be increased demands once the hospital is built. It would be appalling if we had our super new hospital and people were stuck in traffic trying to get to it.”
He adds: “I’m taking a delegation of local MPs to meet the Transport Minister to try to persuade him to give it greater priority. It’s the main road between the M25 and the south coast, but it becomes a country lane after Castle Hill.”
As the father of young children, Greg particularly enjoys visiting local schools and taking school parties, from primary age up to sixth form, to London and around Westminster.
“Capel School came up recently, and we had a mock debate in one of the committee rooms in the House of Commons. They all wrote letters to me afterwards, which I am replaying to individually, and they all have very strong views, too.
“This morning, I’ve been to Mascalls in Paddock Wood and I sat in on advisory groups where people from all the different years get together in small groups and discuss things together, so 18-year-old sixth formers are able to give a helping hand to 11-year-old new pupils, for example. There’s a lot of really exciting work being done in our local schools.”
I ask Greg where he sees his place in Government when the Conservatives get back into power. He smiles: “You come into politics in order to make a difference and the place you can make a difference is being in Government, not in Opposition. It is fantastic being the MP for Tunbridge Wells and representing people here, but I would like to translate my ideas and our policies into helping the country, not just my constituency.
“The job that I do for David Cameron at the moment is to be in charge of our policy towards charities and voluntary organisations and of all the places in the country, west Kent is teeming with voluntary organisations and charities – places like Hospices in the Weald, Pepenbury (which I’m patron of), the Kenwood Trust – there are so many fantastic charities that could do so much more if they were encouraged and had some of the bureaucracy and rules and regulations stripped away from them. I’d very much like to continue and be Minister for Charities.”
The popular conception of ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ is the exact opposite of the truth
One of the top priorities of the Conservative government is to eradicate poverty, and its underlying causes, and it is a subject very close to Greg’s heart. “It shouldn’t be sufficient just to keep people on benefits, we want to find ways in which people can be powered back into the mainstream of society and get great jobs. And if there’s a problem with the skills level they have, then we should act on that,” he says.
“We need to be more ambitious than the current Government, which has got a lot of people out of poverty trap by increasing benefits, which is fine, but it’s a staging post and we need top get to the ultimate position where people can earn enough to support themselves.
“We need to concentrate on tackling the underlying causes of poverty, whether it’s a poor education – even in this area a terrifying number of children leave school illiterate after 12 years of education and it’s not surprising they end up in poverty. So we need to make sure we are offering a great education to those people.”
As an economist, Greg is also very interested in how the economy is being run and feels there are “big question marks” over the state of the economy at the moment. He warns: “I hope we’ll get through it without there being a recession, but I do think we are very poorly prepared compared to other countries, who are cutting taxes to stave off recession.
Rising taxes
“We are the only country in the western world to be increasing taxes and we need to do that because we are borrowing so much - £5,000 per household over the next four years, and it’s a terrifying situation to be in.
“We’ve had a period of relative prosperity and I think we should have used those prosperous times to put something aside for the more difficult times, and we have just failed to do that. You need to look and ahead and be prudent and out money aside in prosperous times to help you through times of difficulty.”
I am interested to hear about Greg’s most admired political figures. He cites Winston Churchill (“he was such a dominant figure of the 20th century”), Mrs Thatcher, for “being tough and recognising that there were problems to solve, and solving them” and, more surprisingly, Ronald Regan.
“He is often underestimated, but he not only brought a degree of personal warmth to the job of President, but he was also very tough – together with Mrs Thatcher, they faced down the Soviet Union and caused the end of the Cold War, lifting the threat of nuclear power,” he reminds me.
Back on his home turf, does Greg get recognised a lot and does he mind? He smiles: “The people in Tunbridge Wells are incredibly warm and generous, it’s a fantastic town with a great spirit. I’ve never once encountered any negativity or hostility. If people stop to chat with you, they do so in a friendly way and with enthusiasm about the town.
“The popular conception of ‘disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’ is the exact opposite of the truth. It has a reputation across the rest of the country as being a rather elderly sort of place, but it is a town brimming with young people and young families.
The music-loving MP, who goes to The Forum (“the best indie nightclub in the south east of England”) and enjoys listening to jazz at Ronnie Scott’s in London and at The Grey Lady on the Pantiles, also supports live theatre at Trinity and is excited about the proposal to have a cinema in the Pantiles: “it would be a huge asset for the town.”
He likes taking the family out to local Indian restaurants (but tactfully won’t name names), and enjoys the town’s excellent café culture, especially on the Pantiles.
“In Tunbridge Wells, our quality of life is among the best in Britain, but I think we have to fight to keep it that way,” he warns. “We have beautiful architecture, a very vibrant commercial, artistic and social aspect to the town, and I think it requires constant vigilance to battle to see off threats to that and to not see it become ‘any town.’
“The distinctiveness of Tunbridge Wells is its essence. I have a real sense of pride representing this constituency – it’s a real place with a real identity and I very much want to campaign to protect the identity of Tunbridge Wells as an area as well as a town.”