Industry prepares to welcome fifth housing minister of 2022

The industry will have to welcome yet another housing minister, as Michael Gove shuffles his  team at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The new appointment will be the 14th housing minister in 12 years, and the fifth since the beginning of 2022. Lee Rowley, MP for North East Derbyshire, was appointed to the position of housing minister by Liz Truss in September. Some eyebrows were raised that he was holding the housing brief, despite being only a junior minister and not a full minister of state. However, with Rishi Sunak becoming prime minister and reappointing Gove to the role of secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities at the end of October, that has now changed. In a tweet a few minutes ago Rowley confirmed the move, stating that he was now minister for local government. According to sources, the housing brief is likely to be taken over by Lucy Frazer (pictured), who Gove brought in as minister of state last week. However that has yet to be confirmed. At present there is no housing minister. Frazer is now the most senior politician in the department under Gove, but her brief has yet to be made clear by the department. Barely two days into the role, Frazer appeared on the BBC’s Question Time programme last week, where she proclaimed that “levelling up is here to stay”. As late as this morning (4 November), Rowley was still being referred to as housing and planning minister, but not by the department. It previously listed his brief as “housing”, but now it simply gives his title – parliamentary undersecretary of state, or junior minister. Similarly, Rowley has in the past week updated his Twitter handle to “DLUHC minister”, compared with “housing minister” last week. The department, which last week listed the briefs for Rowley and fellow Truss appointment Dehenna Davison, now simply references their parliamentary undersecretary of state titles. Felicity Buchan, a former Treasury and business junior minister, was also brought into the department as a parliamentary undersecretary of state, replacing Andrew Stephenson, who became a government whip. She is believed to be taking on the communities brief. Frazer replaced Paul Scully as minister of state at the department. Scully held the posts of minister for local government and building safety, as well as minister for London. He has since been moved to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, taking the London brief with him. A spokesperson for the department confirmed that the roles were being “looked at” but that “the portfolios will be confirmed in due course”. To send feedback, e-mail piers.wehner@eg.co.uk or tweet @PiersWehner or @EGPropertyNews