This election, more than 180 seats across the country held a majority of less than 5000, meaning that from today we can expect a whole host of new faces in Parliament after the election. In this blog, we take a look at seven newly elected candidates who are “Ones to Watch” for Policy Connect and our supporters, and how we feel we could best work with them.

Laura Trott

Conservative, Sevenoaks

Laura has made huge strides within the Conservative party, having served as a number 10 specialist adviser between 2012 and 2016. Laura has announced that she will prioritise protecting local grammar schools, as well as delivering more funding for education services. Her previous role as an ambassador for the Sutton Trust saw her promoting social mobility and tackling educational disadvantage, something we at Policy Connect are hugely passionate about, and we look forward to hopefully meeting with Laura to discuss our work in Education & Skills and Assistive Technologies.

Florence Eshalomi

Labour, Vauxhall

Elected as Vauxhall’s MP in place of Kate Hoey, Florence Eshalomi has stated that she will focus on healthcare and will push for a whole scale review of the different education and training services available to young people. She will also aim to create a better link between employers, education, and training. As a sickle cell carrier, she is keen to work with APPGs that focus on healthcare, and we look forward to discussing our work with the APHG with Florence.

Dehenna Davison

Conservative, Bishop Auckland

At the heart of Dehenna’s campaign has been a call for better infrastructure across the board, from digital to local roads. Having been elected as the MP for Bishop Auckland we would like to meet with Dehenna to discuss our work with the All Party Parliamentary Group for Manufacturing, to show the progress we’ve made so far, and where we feel her support would be valuable.

Charlotte Nichols

Labour, Warrington North

Charlotte has stated that she will focus on Hydrogen as an issue as “much of the research and innovation taking place is in the area surrounding Warrington”. She would like to see her constituents benefit from the huge investment and innovation in this sector that is ongoing in the area. Following the launch of our report, Future Gas pt 3: Uncomfortable Home Truths, which called for a nation-wide instalment of Hydrogen boilers in the future, we look forward to meeting with Charlotte to discuss our work.

James Murray

Labour, Ealing North

James has previously served as housing adviser to both Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn, and has stated that he will work to bring more equality to Britain’s housing availability, ensuring that the quality of housing available is at a high enough standard to keep people safe. In our report, Bricks and Water, a key recommendation was the introduction of a Property Resilience Certificate (PRC) for new and existing homes. This is to give residents an at-a-glance assessment of their home’s vulnerability and steps that can be taken to mitigate the inevitable impacts of floods in future and we look forward to working with James on this.

Danny Kruger

Conservative, Devizes

A former adviser to Boris Johnson and once part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in 2018, we look forward to working with Danny on our ongoing projects with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Data Analytics and Design and Innovation. We hope that his background in culture and media mean that he will prioritise these sectors and will support us in continuing the work we do.

Munira Wilson

Liberal Democrats, Twickenham

Since November 2016 Munira has been employed by pharmaceutical company Merck as their corporate affairs director, and has spent a huge amount of her campaign focussing on healthcare related issues. Now elected, we look forward to meeting with her to discuss our work on Carbon Monoxide and the importance of this becoming a priority in government, as well as our overarching work in Health.