Robert Jones

Robert Brannock Jones, politician: born Bedford 26 September 1950; Head of Research, National House-Building Council 1976-78; Housing Policy Adviser, Conservative Central Office 1978-79; Parliamentary Adviser, Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors 1979-83; MP (Conservative) for Hertfordshire West 1983-97; Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment 1994-95, Minister of State (Minister for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency) 1995-97; chairman, Redrow plc 2000-2007; married 1989 Jennifer Sandercock; died Tring, Hertfordshire 16 April 2007.

Robert Jones had only just begun his belated rise up the ministerial hierarchy when defeat in the 1997 general election terminated his political career. A staunch Thatcherite, closely associated with the Adam Smith Institute, and a member of the No Turning Back group, to his own surprise and that of his contemporaries he was passed over for promotion; and it was not until 1994, after 12 years in the Commons, that John Major finally made him a junior minister at the Department of the Environment.

A year later he was promoted to be the Minister of State responsible for Construction, Planning and Energy Efficiency, a field in which he had considerable expertise. An able debater and a quietly competent minister, he had the intellectual energy to go much further in politics had government and party not slumped into an irretrievable downturn.

Jones was born in 1950, the son of a civil engineer and US government official, and he claimed for himself some background in chemistry. However, his degree at St Andrews was in Modern History and his interests lay in politics and policy-making. He had been educated at St Martin's, Northwood, and Merchant Taylors' before going up to university and, while still there as a researcher in 1972, he was elected to the St Andrews Burgh Council. In the following year he served as Vice-Chairman of the Federation of Conservative Students and was elected on to the Fife County Council.

In October 1974 he contested Kirkcaldy, but was relegated to third place by the Scottish Nationalist surge. After less than two years as a marketing development executive with Tay Textiles, he took up a position as head of research at the National House-Building Council in 1976. In the same year he published New Approaches to Housing.

He was recruited to Conservative Central Office to advise on housing policy in 1978, but left to become, first, the local government adviser, and then parliamentary adviser to the Federation of Civil Engineering Contractors, a position that he held until entering the House in 1983.

Jones had contested Stockton in 1979, but had already been elected on to the Chiltern District Council, where he served until 1983. He was Vice-President of the Association of District Councils from 1983 to 1994. He had continued to publish, writing a guide to the role of the district auditor, Watchdog, in 1978 and a defence guide for ratepayers in 1980. Two years later a savage critique of the planning system followed, pungently entitled Town and Country Chaos.

Hertfordshire West, the seat which he won in 1983 and held until 1997, was a new creation and had looked a reasonable bet for Labour, so much so that the sitting Member for Hemel Hempstead, who had a strong claim to it, decamped to another seat. Paul Boateng displaced a popular Labour MP, Robin Corbett, as the Labour candidate and proceeded to dissipate the Labour vote. With an SDP candidate in the field, Jones had a comfortable victory by 9,576 votes and extended his majority in 1987 to almost 15,000.

Although ready to rebel on issues like the solicitors' monopoly in conveyancing and any attempt to increase parental contributions to student grants, he was clearly identified as a strong supporter of free-market and monetarist policies, and more Thatcherite than some ministers in his concerns about the trade-union political levy. Less fashionably, he was concerned about the damaging effects of pollution on the environment, lobbied hard behind the scenes in November 1986 to improve the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads Bill, and introduced legislation to protect hedgerows. From the moment he arrived in the House, he served on the Environment Select Committee and chaired it from 1992 until 1994. From 1987 until 1994 he also chaired the Conservative MPs' party organisation committee.

Briefly, in 1987-88, he was the co- proprietor of Time Proof Kitchens Ltd, but for the most part was content to be a parliamentary consultant, taking a particular interest in the waste industry. Finally given office at the Environment department, he rapidly proved his competence and was rewarded by promotion within the department and a major bloc of work on which he brought earlier expertise to bear.

His parliamentary seat shrank with boundary changes to include little more than Hemel Hempstead; but arguably it was the general disillusion with the Major government and not the boundary changes that led to his defeat at the 1997 election. Jones turned to industry, joining the board of Redrow plc and taking the chair from 2000. He also became a director of Freeport in 1998.

A keen player of squash and tennis, in later years he found time for gardening and he was also very keen on music.

John Barnes