West Midlands’ new mayor: ‘It’s about we, not me’

Having narrowly beaten Andy Street to become the new mayor of the West Midlands, Richard Parker is now setting his sights on collaboration, boosting social housing and making the region “the best place to do business”. Sitting down with EG at the UKREiiF conference in Leeds, Richard Parker is less than a month into his four-year term as mayor of the West Midlands, his first political post. He sounds like a man enjoying the honeymoon period. “It’s the first time I’ve been an elected politician, so I’ve had great support in working in a new profession,” says Parker. “As for the transition into governing, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, every step of the way.” Labour candidate Parker narrowly beat Conservative Andy Street, who served as mayor for two terms, in the 2 May local elections. He won against Street by 1,508 votes across 1,500 ballot boxes. “Just one vote in each ballot box made a difference,” Parker says. “The Labour Party and I won against quite a difficult backdrop.” Parker says his goals now are clear. “My priority is to improve people’s lives and make the biggest difference in helping people, in achieving their ambitions, to grow the economy,” he says. “But we cannot do that if in large parts of the region large numbers of people – particularly in the poorest areas – don’t have the opportunities they need to get better jobs. That’s the way I can have the biggest impact on people’s lives and lifestyles. “I would say I am looking to do things differently from the previous mayor,” he adds. “The best way I can make a difference is by working collaboratively with other partners. For me, it’s less about ‘I’ or ‘me’. It’s about ‘we’, and how we work together with key stakeholders to make the biggest difference.” Schedule of priorities Parker spent almost 27 years with PwC, becoming a partner in its government advisory practice in 2006 and leaving in 2016 to establish RP Strategy, his own consultancy advising private and public sector clients on strategy development, stakeholder relations and policy. If his previous jobs focused on advising clients on how to get from A to B, the mayoralty lets Parker “set a direction of travel, set out where we want to land”, he says. “And I now need others around me to develop those route maps to allow me to deliver.” Parker ran his campaign on four themes: bringing buses back into public control; revitalising high streets; upskilling the workforce; and providing social housing. A social housing programme is now front of mind for the new mayor. “Over my term and towards the next decade, I have committed to the biggest programme of social housing construction that we have seen in the region for 40 years,” he says. Parker ran on a pledge to deliver a minimum of 2,000 council and social homes a year by 2028, with a target of 20,000 by 2030. There will be challenges. Since being appointed, Parker says he has learnt that £200m of funds available to the mayor to invest in social housing “cannot be deployed because the rules around its use are drawn too tightly”. Parker is in the process of speaking with the secretary of state to secure greater freedom over the use of resources. The need is pressing. The West Midlands Combined Authority has around 20,000 families in temporary accommodation and 46,000 people on housing waiting lists. On the campaign trail he visited a school in inner-city Birmingham and heard of a student’s mother who had been evicted by a landlord overnight and was then helped by teachers rallying together. “If the teachers hadn’t contributed, they would have been on the street – the teachers’ contributions allowed them to stay in a hotel for a few days,” Parker says. “These tragic incidents are happening every day of the week across the West Midlands. And those people who are most vulnerable are paying far too much, and often for the poorest-quality accommodation.” With a general election around the corner, Parker will share his plans and requests with the next secretary of state as soon as possible, including providing grant funding to housing associations and building bridges with private sector developers with medium to long-term investment plans. He says: “If we can align our resources with what they’re doing, I think we can make a big impact quickly. And for me, it is all about the way in which we can deliver most effectively and as quickly as possible, and get the best sort of value for money from the contribution we’re making.” Parker points to sprawling regeneration schemes ongoing in the Midlands, such as Perry Barr and Smithfield in Birmingham, saying he “would like to believe that the largest regeneration schemes will assist more delivery, but over the next two to four years”. He adds: “I’ve got to find immediate programmes that can deliver far more return. And if we do that then we have the potential to make a really big impact, not just to those on waiting lists but to those families living in poor-quality, temporary accommodation too.” Call for collaboration In a bid to work more collaboratively, Parker is speaking with the Labour team that may come into power at the general election. Metro mayors are now joining cabinet meetings on a rotational basis, giving them an “opportunity to engage on substantive issues”, as Parker puts it. “Collaboration on every level will be key from day one,” says Parker. “What we can achieve working independently is very little; the best way we can make the biggest impact is by working collaboratively.” At UKREiiF, Parker had lunch with Angela Rayner, shadow secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities, discussing Labour working with metro mayors to engage with the regions and deploy the party’s resources and policies more effectively. In addition, Parker will be working more collaboratively with Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester. He says: “Greater Manchester and the West Midlands are the two areas most aligned socially and economically, so the two working together is important.” Parker wants to make the West Midlands “the best place to do business”. He says: “We need to build out our housing stock, we need to regenerate communities and we need to create jobs. I want to remove any barriers that stop people investing in the region.” He spent time at UKREiiF talking to institutional investors about their appetite to back projects in the West Midlands, attempting to better align the way that institutions interested in the region use their money and the projects coming on stream. He points to the recently launched West Midlands Investment Prospectus, which outlines £20bn of opportunities across 32 projects and highlights the “vast investment potential and global ambition” of the region. Last year’s “Deeper Devolution Deal” with the government secured £1.5bn in new funding and powers to promote investment and growth, including the development of three new growth zones. In addition, the region has a new investment zone designated by government, focused on the advanced manufacturing sector, with the potential to attract £5.5bn of investment via a mix of tax incentives, direct funding and business rate retention. As the interview winds to an end, news breaks that prime minister Rishi Sunak has called a general election for 4 July. “Happy Independence Day!” says Lucy Caldicott, Parker’s chief of staff. Parker welcomes the news: “I think lots of us have been wanting a general election so that we can move the country forward, so I am very pleased that the date has been announced,” he says. “I’m looking forward to working with – hopefully – a Labour government from 5 July.” Photo © West Midlands Combined Authority