Natalie Elphicke


Natalie Cecilia Elphicke is an English Conservative Party politician and finance lawyer. At the 2019 general election, she was elected as the Member of Parliament for Dover, succeeding her husband Charlie.
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. She is active in the Conservative Party, leading the Conservative Policy Forum when it was launched in 2011. 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.

Early life and career

She grew up in social housing in Stevenage, and studied Law at the University of Kent. 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. However, this company was dissolved in 2014.

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. It involved canvassing the views of over 400 organisations up and down the country. 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.

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.

Private life

She is married to Charlie Elphicke, the former Conservative Party MP for Dover. They have two children. She successfully stood as the Conservative candidate for this seat at the 2019 general election after her husband stepped down, shortly before he was charged with and then found guilty of sexual assault. In July 2020, she tweeted that, as a result of Elphicke's guilty verdict, they had separated after a 25-year marriage.
She received an OBE in the 2015 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to housing.