What did the four Tory leadership hopefuls have to say on housing?

When this was pointed out to him and pressed about how he would pay for the multibillion-pound plan to abolish stamp duty on homes, he asked: “Your argument is because one of my predecessors proposed it, we can never propose it?”

But it has been a conference very much about vibes rather than solid ideas. As Ms Badenoch said: “The leadership contest is now, and what we are testing is principles and character, not the detail of policy solutions. That will come later.”

In his speech, Mr Cleverly argued that his party needed to remake the argument for conservatism and capitalism, by supporting people to build a family, and build more homes.

He said: “Build more homes so we can build a new generation of optimism in the tradition of Macmillan and Thatcher.

“Cut the cost of childcare, so people can afford to build a family. Cut red tape so we can build the energy and transport infrastructure we need more cheaply.

“Build, build, build.”

It is unclear what red tape he thinks still needs to be cut after his party’s 14 years in power that began with Lord David Cameron’s government’s ‘red tape challenge’.

Launched by Lord Cameron in April 2011, the challenge aimed to cut back on regulation that was thought to be holding back economic growth.

In the middle of last month, survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire criticised the former prime minister after he tried to claim that fire safety regulations were not part of his government’s deregulation drive.

His comments came after the Grenfell Tower Inquiry report found that a “poorly run”, “complacent” and “defensive” government department “failed to act on what it knew” about dangerous cladding in the years before Grenfell, amid an enthusiasm for deregulation that “dominated” its thinking.

When asked about planning on Monday, Mr Tugendhat, said he was a believer in “building the right things in the right places”.

Asked if he was a “yimby”, a “nimby” or a “banana” (build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything), the former security minister said: “It sounds disgusting and yellow, so it must be Lib Dem.”

A more coherent response to the ‘nimby or yimby’ question came at a panel session on Tuesday where the leader of the Conservative group at Wandsworth Borough Council described shared ownership as “the devil” that has “undermined the dream” of being a homeowner.

Later, Mr Tugendhat added: “We need to give young people the chance to own a home, connect that home to work and that work to growth. That’s our route back.”

For her part, Ms Badenoch suggested on Monday that she would like to see more housing built to make it easier for people to start a family.

She told an event with the Conservative Women’s Organisation that a shortage of housing could be affecting the birth rate. The following day she took aim at net zero, after describing it as un-Conservative.

She said: “We set a target with no plan on how to meet it, just so politicians could say we were the first country to do so. Now we have a net zero strategy addicted to state subsidy, making energy more expensive and hurting our economy. I am not a climate change sceptic, but I am a net zero sceptic.”

This scepticism will come with little surprise after then-prime minister Rishi Sunak scrapped plans for new private rental properties to have at least an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of Band C by 2025, and all private properties by 2028, saying: “We will never force any household to do it.”

The current government has since reintroduced EPC targets for 2030 and more funding for landlords to meet their retrofit ambitions.

The former housing secretary, Mr Jenrick said on Wednesday that the Tories must “take a stand on net zero”.

While he does not oppose the principle of net zero, he does oppose “the crazy interim binding targets put into law by Gordon Brown”.

Mr Jenrick’s tenure was marked by the escalating building safety crisis. Following the election in December 2019, he oversaw the launch of the then-£1bn Building Safety Fund – the first time money had been made available for buildings with dangerous cladding materials other than the type used on Grenfell Tower.

But he also oversaw the publication of a ‘Consolidated Advice Note’, which had the effect of making lenders require ‘EWS1 forms’ confirming the status of the external wall on all blocks below 18 metres. This has been blamed for a major freeze in flat sales and millions of leaseholders becoming embroiled in the crisis.

Mr Jenrick made a desperate bid to reverse this process in July when he beseeched lenders to stop asking for the forms on these blocks and promised to withdraw the advice note.

He also faced widespread condemnation in a scandal over his approval of a development in Tower Hamlets to be carried out by the company of wealthy Conservative donor Richard Desmond.

He added on Wednesday: “Our country needs more homes. We need more industry and infrastructure.

“So I have a hard message for all of us today, if we want to be the party of low tax, of growth of business – as I do, and I know you do, too – we also need to be the party of fixing the broken system that stops us building the homes, the factories, the data centres, the roads, the trams, the trains the investment that Britain desperately needs.”

Also at the conference this week, a Greater London Authority (GLA) member called for planning permissions to be shorter to incentivise developers to build out more quickly on sites across the capital.

Andrew Boff, current chair of the GLA, was speaking as part of a panel session at the Conservative Party Conference on Monday. Planning permissions are mostly valid for three years from the time of approval.

But Mr Boff said: “I certainly think that planning permissions need to be shorter.

“It’s currently two or three years. It can be a year, bearing in mind the pressure on land in London that will give them some incentive for putting spades in the ground.”

It might be the only point from the Conservative Party Conference that there may be some political census going forward after the same issue was raised at both the Labour and Liberal Democrat gatherings in recent weeks.

In the meantime, the latest polls suggest that Mr Jenrick is closing on race leader Ms Badenoch, leaving a two-horse sprint between the latter who believes maternity pay is “excessive” and a former housing minister who has come under heavy criticism for using footage of a dead soldier in a campaign video.