Ben Houchen

Ben Houchen, Baron Houchen of High Leven (born 9 December 1986), is a British Conservative Party politician who was elected as Tees Valley Mayor in May 2017 after winning the 2017 mayoral election, defeating Labour candidate Sue Jeffrey by 2.2 per cent in the second round.

He was re-elected in 2021, defeating the Labour candidate, Jessie Joe Jacobs.

Houchen represents the five Tees Valley local authority areas of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar and Cleveland, Hartlepool and Darlington.

He also acts as chairman of the Tees Valley Combined Authority, the body tasked with driving economic growth and job creation in the area.

Born in Stockton-on-Tees, Houchen grew up in Ingleby Barwick.

He attended Conyers' School in Yarm before studying law at Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne.

He is the nephew of Keith Houchen, a former football player for Coventry City F.C.

Houchen was a councillor on Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council, representing Yarm ward, between 2011 and 2017.

In 2012 he stood as the Conservative parliamentary candidate in the Middlesbrough by-election, finishing fourth of eight candidates with 1,063 votes (6.3%), only three votes ahead of the Peace Party.

In the 2014 European Parliament elections, Houchen was the Conservative candidate for the North East region.

Houchen was selected as the Conservative Party candidate for Mayor of the Tees Valley in December 2016.

Upon taking office, he became entitled to the style of Mayor.

As part of his 2017 mayoral campaign, Houchen promised to bring Teesside International Airport (then Durham Tees Valley Airport) back into its previous name and public ownership.

In December 2018 Houchen announced that a £40 million deal to buy the airport had been reached with The Peel Group.

In 2019, he appeared on LBC's list of the "Top 100 Most Influential Conservatives", at number 100.

He was accused of pork barrel politics in the runup to the Hartlepool byelection of 2021.

At the 2021 Tees Valley mayoral election, Houchen was re-elected with 72.8% of the vote.

Houchen was nominated for a life peerage in Boris Johnson's resignation honours in June 2023.

On 12 July 2023, he was created Baron Houchen of High Leven, of Ingleby Barwick in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, and was introduced to the House of Lords on 24 July.

He sits in the Lords for the Conservative Party.

He made his maiden speech on 8 November 2023

The acquisition was unanimously approved by the Tees Valley Combined Authority Cabinet in January 2019.

Losses at the airport grew to £30.3m from the 2019 to 2022 financial years, leading to Houchen ploughing a further £30m of public money into the airport.

The South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) is the first Mayoral Development Corporation outside of London.

Chaired by Houchen, the STDC area covers approximately 4,500 acres of land to the south of the River Tees, in the Borough of Redcar and Cleveland, and includes former SSI steelworks site as well as other industrial assets.

The area includes the deep-water port of Teesport.

The STDC aims to create approximately 20,000 new jobs and contribute £1 billion per annum into the UK economy by 2025.

However, as of late 2021, the economic impact of the port has been described as 'speculative' by a member of the management board.

In January 2019, Houchen announced that a deal had been reached to acquire 1,420 acres of land on the STDC site from Tata Steel Europe.

The acquisition was signed off in February 2019.

Consequently, he was one of the figures responsible in 2021 for the controversial demolition of the landmark Dorman Long Tower despite the granting of a Grade II listing to the Brutalist building.

He later accused the Historic England official who listed the structure of being a junior member of staff, who had acted without the permission of senior managers.

This was later robustly denied by Historic England who released a statement saying "The mayor’s statement is incorrect - the listing was not a mistake. Historic England advised DCMS to list the site. Following a site visit, our advice to list the site remained the same".

In November 2023, Houchen proposed the STDC area as a potential location for a Las Vegas-style Sphere venue, after London Mayor Sadiq Khan blocked proposals for the MSG Sphere London on the grounds of light pollution.

In 2023 Houchen was criticised after it emerged that a 90 per cent stake in the company that operates the vacant Redcar Steelworks site, teesworks, was transferred to two local developers, Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney, without any public tender process.

It also emerged that the private developers have received at least £45m in dividends and hold £63m cash from the project despite not having invested any direct cash in the project themselves.

A subsequent investigation found that the Tees Valley Combined Authority and South Tees Development Corporation did not meet standards expected when managing public funds, and raised questions about transparency and oversight across the system to evidence value for money.

Houchen lives in Yarm with his wife Rachel, a former French teacher at Conyers' School.