Lord Sir Robert Walter Kerslake, who was heavily involved in politics, has sadly passed away on Saturday morning aged 68, after a battle with cancer.
Sir Bob Kerslake was the Head of the Home Civil Service and took over from Sir Gus O’Donnell. In 2014, he was appointed the Chair of King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and in 2015 was introduced as a crossbench life peer in the House of Lords.
In 2003 The Guardian named Lord Kerslake in the list of the 100 most influential people in the public sector and in 2005 he was named in the New Year Honours and knighted for “services to Local Government.”
Lord Kerslake criticised the reappointment of the Home Secretary Suella Braverman as a “potential bomb” for the Tory government.
Sir Kerslake told Times Radio, “I think it’s the first mistake by Rishi Sunak. Firstly, because somebody breaches the code in this way, and then seems to escape any real challenge and punishment, it says to others, well, maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe we can ignore it as well?
“Secondly, I think she seems to be a serial leaker from all we can establish. And so she has leaked once, there’s every chance she might do it again.
“And that will be bad news, I think, for Rishi Sunak. My honest advice to him would be to get on and fill his ethics adviser, as it’s often called, as quickly as possible.”
Baron Kerslake who was also the Peabody Chair told the government in May that they must reset their relationship with the housebuilding and development sector following disagreements over planning policy which comes in the aftermath of the Grenfell fire which happened in 2017.
Lord Kerslake said at a keynote speech at the UKREIIF before visiting the investment minister, Lord Dominic Johnson, “The one thing I would say gently to the minister is that the government does need to look at resetting its relationship with the housebuilding and development industry.
“To put it mildly, this has been a difficult time in that relationship, in the aftermath of Grenfell and the need to tackle the safety issue, and some very contested issues around planning and development.”
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