Government reshuffle sees 16th Housing Minister in 13 years appointed

The sacking of Suella Braverman as Home Secretary has prompted Prime Minister Rishi to undertake a significant Cabinet reshuffle.

The changes included the sacking of Housing Minister, Racheal Maclean, with Lee Rowley appointed to the role for the second time. He briefly held the position of Housing Minister for seven weeks during Liz Truss’ truncated period as Prime Minister

Mr Rowley has also served as a Construction Minister during Boris Johnson’s premiership and has moved to his new role after holding the local government portfolio under Mr Sunak.

At the time of her appointment, Racheal Maclean was the sixth person in the housing role within a single year and RIBA President Muyiwa Oki said: “It’s incredibly frustrating to see another Housing Minister ousted after just 10 months in the job - the 16th in 13 years.

“The Government has to get a grip on this housing crisis – it demands urgent action. We need continuity, the development of a strategic plan and certainty to ensure homes and places are planned, designed and built to meet the needs of current and future communities.

“Architects stand ready to help create high quality, connected, inclusive and accessible, vibrant places where people want to live.”

Also as part of the Cabinet reshuffle, Therese Coffey has stood down as Secretary of State for DEFRA with former Health Secretary Steve Barclay taking her place.

Rico Wojtulewicz, Head of Policy at the National Federation of Builders (NFB), said: “We are sad to lose another housing minister and the DEFRA Secretary of State because we were engaged in serious discussions regarding a medium sized site planning definition and strengthening the NPPF, as well as how we build in biodiversity.

“We look forward to meeting the new housing minister and DEFRA secretary to highlight why these policies are important as without them, the Government will be responsible for a greater number of SME builders and regional contractors leaving the construction sector, which makes levelling up even more difficult and further harms UK productivity."

The Federation of Master Builders welcomed the reappointment of Lee Rowley to the housing brief.

Brian Berry, Chief Executive of the FMB: “The reappointment of Lee Rowley MP as the new Housing Minister means he should be able to hit the ground running to tackle the growing housing crisis. With housing output set to be at an all-time low the new Minister will need to focus on the barriers stopping new homes from being built.

“Rowley needs to build on the work of his predecessor Rachel Maclean MP who was a strong advocate for SME house builders.

“Local housebuilders offer a way forward to help increase the country’s housing supply, but to do so effectively means tackling the failing planning system which is under resourced and fails to allocate sufficient small sites for local housebuilders to build on.

“Critically, housing should be one of the top five policy issues for the Government because without addressing the chronic undersupply of housing the country’s economic growth will be undermined.”