Firstly, on behalf of the CPF Board, we want to thank all our Members again for all of their hard work during the Election campaign. Overseen by Christopher Fraser, as our Vice-Chairman at the time, the CPF mobilised volunteers in over 221 key seats – a great achievement. Thank you also for your patience as we plan the next few months running up to our Conference activities and future policy work.
As the Prime Minister has signalled, the CPF is playing a big role in the Party’s post-election renewal, and we are excited at the opportunities that lie ahead and the priority we have been given by the new Board.
The CPF has long argued for representation at the highest levels of the Party. As our new structure only allows for one vice-chairman, we are delighted that Rob Semple OBE, Chairman of the National Convention, has asked Andrew Sharpe to take on the role of our Vice-Chairman. Andrew sits on the Party Board and will make sure that the voice of the voluntary party is heard. We are extremely grateful to Christopher Fraser OBE for his years of outstanding service to the CPF, and hope that he will continue to work with us on the next chapter.
We are currently pulling together a work plan for the run-up to Conference, reflecting the new reality of the post-election Parliament.
It’s clear to us all that the recent election highlighted the importance of both fresh thinking and policy outreach to the voter groups whose grievances were channelled by other parties, without any viable policy offers. As such, it is important that the CPF discussion papers are in tune with the big issues of our time. Having discussed this with the team, we agree that there are two key discussion papers we would like to publish in the short-term. The first, on Conservative Values, will be sent to you next week, and we will aim to circulate a paper on Youth shortly afterwards. We are very conscious that many of you are still awaiting a government response to our Cost of Living paper, which we are assured by Ministers will arrive before Conference in October.
At Conference itself, we will be involved in the inaugural grassroots Conservative Ideas Summit. As for Conference itself, we will be unveiling our new 'Tomorrow's Champions' panel of young policy Ambassadors on the main stage representing social groups not currently mobilised to our cause, and who will take on the work of coordinating policy streams within the Forum around their specific areas of expertise/interest.
We will also host our usual Reception for members, have a CPF debating slot on one of the days, and our stand throughout the event.
We hope you will agree that there is much to look forward to. Thank you again for your patience. We will be in touch next week with our paper on Conservative Values, and look forward to receiving your responses.
Kind regards,
George Freeman MP – Chairman
Andrew Sharpe – Vice-Chairman
Hannah David – National Voluntary Director
John Hayward – CPF Manager, CCHQ