Natalie Elphicke

Natalie Cecilia Elphicke OBE (née Ross; born November 1970)[1] is a British Conservative Party politician and finance lawyer. At the 2019 general election, she was elected as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dover, succeeding her husband Charlie.[2]

Natalie Elphicke

OBE MP
Elphicke in 2019
Member of Parliament
for Dover
Assumed office
12 December 2019
Preceded byCharlie Elphicke
Majority12,278 (24.2%)
Personal details
Born
Natalie Cecilia Ross

November 1970 (age 50)
Stevenage, England, UK
Political partyConservative
Spouse(s)
​
​
(m. 1995; sep. 2020)​
Children2
Alma materUniversity of Kent

Elphicke specialises in housing finance and conservative policy development. She was the author of the 2010 report Housing People; Financing Housing for the conservative think-tank Policy Exchange.[3] She is active in the Conservative Party, leading the Conservative Policy Forum when it was launched in 2011.[4] She is the chief executive officer of the privately funded Housing and Finance Institute set up by the Cameron–Clegg coalition following a review she wrote with Keith House.[5]

Early life and career

Ross was born in Stevenage, England and grew up in social housing.[6] She attended a grammar school before studying law at the University of Kent.[6] She worked for Stephenson Harwood becoming a partner in their banking practice. She left in 2013 to found Million Homes, Million Lives, with Calum Mercer, former finance director at Circle Housing.[7][8] However, this company was dissolved in 2016.[9]

The Elphicke-House Report

This review was announced in the 2013 Autumn Statement. The remit included the restriction that any proposals should not involve breaching the Housing Revenue Account borrowing cap.[10] It involved canvassing the views of over 400 organisations up and down the country.[11] The review entitled From statutory provider to Housing Delivery Enabler: Review into the local authority role in housing supply was published on 27 January 2015.[10]

Housing and Finance Institute
Main article: Housing and Finance Institute

In January 2017, she launched a pilot scheme to facilitate a more effective way of integrating the provision of infrastructure such as water, electricity, gas, broadband and roads in proposals to develop housing. Following an initial report due by the end of January, the scheme was due to run until May 2017, with reports being submitted to the MPs Gavin Barwell, Minister of State for Housing and Planning and Stephen Hammond MP, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Infrastructure.[12]

Parliamentary career

Elphicke was selected as the Conservative candidate for the Dover constituency on 8 November 2019. She was the only name on the ballot in the selection vote at the local association.[6] She had previously narrowly lost out to Matt Hancock for selection as the candidate for West Suffolk prior to the 2010 general election.[13] Dover had previously been represented by her husband Charlie who had stood down after being charged with three counts of sexual assault against two women.[1] She was elected as MP in the 2019 general election with a majority of 12,278.[14]

In February 2020, Elphicke was appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.[15]

Personal life

She is married to Charlie Elphicke, the former Conservative Party MP for Dover.[16] They have two children.[17] After his conviction in July 2020 of sexual assault, she announced that they had separated after a 25-year marriage.[18] After he was sentenced in September to two years in jail for the offences, Elphicke spoke out in support of his appeal against the conviction and sentencing as although she felt that he had "behaved badly" that the sentence was "excessive" and attacked the court as being "on a bit of a mission".[19][20]

She received an OBE in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to housing.[15]

References
  1. "Charlie Elphicke: Tory candidate accused of sexual assault replaced by wife". The Independent. 8 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  2. "Deal parliamentary constituency - Election 2019". BBC News. Retrieved 15 December 2019.
  3. "Housing People; Financing Housing". Policy Exchange. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  4. "Natalie Elphicke: The Conservative Policy Forum – re-launched today – will enable the grassroots to help to define a Conservative vision for our country | Conservative Home". Conservative Home. Conservative Home. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  5. "Dedicated housing finance support for local authorities - GOV.UK". www.gov.uk. Department for Communities and Local Government. Retrieved 28 October 2017.
  6. Kinchen, Rosie (9 August 2020). "Mystery deepens over how Natalie Elphicke bagged her Dover seat". The Sunday Times.(subscription required)
  7. Hollander, Gavriel. "The council whisperer". Inside Housing. Inside Housing. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  8. Brown, Carl. "Half of Britain 'will be renting within 30 years'". Inside Housing. Inside Housing. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  9. "Million Homes and Million Lives". Companies House. Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  10. Camp, Sheila. "The Elphicke-House report on housing delivery" (PDF). LGIU.org.uk. Local Government Information Unit. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  11. House, Keith (17 June 2015). "The new Housing Finance Institute can help Councils build homes". Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  12. "Housing & Finance Institute chief Natalie Elphicke designs pilot scheme to unblock infrastructure hold ups delaying house building | Builder & Engineer". www.builderandengineer.co.uk. Builder and Engineer. Retrieved 8 November 2017.
  13. Gimson, Andrew (10 May 2018). "Profile: Matt Hancock, the Osborne acolyte who managed to survive and prosper". Conservative Home. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
  14. "Dover". BBC News. Retrieved 16 September 2020.
  15. Barker, Nathaniel (26 February 2020). "Former Housing & Finance Institute boss gets junior MHCLG role". Retrieved 15 September 2020.
  16. Fearn, Hannah (25 June 2013). "Natalie Elphicke: Drawing up a new blueprint for social housing | Hannah Fearn". The Guardian. The Guardian. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  17. Davies, Gareth (30 July 2020). "Charlie Elphicke's wife dumps him on Twitter after he is found guilty of sexually assaulting two women". The Telegraph. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  18. "Ex-MP guilty of sexual assaults". BBC News. 30 July 2020. Retrieved 31 July 2020.
  19. "Charlie Elphicke: Ex-MP jailed for sex assaults on women". BBC News. 16 September 2020.
  20. Karim, Fariha (16 September 2020). "Natalie Elphicke, wife of sex case MP, criticises jail term". The Times.(subscription required)
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Charlie Elphicke		 Member of Parliament for Dover
2019–present		 Incumbent
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