In September, Lee Rowley MP became the fourth housing minister to take on the role in 2022, following Stuart Andrew, Chris Pincher and Esther McVey, and the 20th person to take on the dogged role since 1997.
To date, Rowley’s been doing the normal tour of housing sites, focussing on Modern Methods of Construction, taking to Twitter to state: “More homes – crucially, in the right places – is our mission”.
NaCSBA is looks forward to working with the new minister, and pressing the case for custom and self build.
However, while then Secretary of State Michael Gove distanced himself from the Conservatives long-held housing targets, Liz Truss went on record in summer, in an interview with The Telegraph, saying she wanted to put an end to “Whitehall-inspired Stalinist housing targets”.
About Lee Rowley
MP for North East Derbyshire, Rowley is a junior minister who spent a year as Construction Minister before resigning as fall out over the Chris Pincher scandal sounded the death knell for Johnson’s cabinet. He joins the new secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, Simon Clarke, as they take on the reins of the housing sector.
Delighted to join @SimonClarkeMP & @luhc as Housing & Planning Minister – a big job ahead to further help raise standards & service across the sector, to improve how planning works for local communities and, vitally, to empower more people achieve their dream of home ownership
— Lee Rowley (@Lee4NED) September 20, 2022
Former banker Rowley takes on the role at possibly the most serious time for housing this century, with inflation, materials, labour and borrowing costs creating a perfect storm that is impacting on the entire economy, and in particular housing.
His track record is very much around supporting housing in the ‘right’ places, and his MP website has him coming out in opposition to large scale local development in his constituency deemed to be in the wrong place.
Rowley spoke at a fringe event at the Conservative conference organised by Conservative Home, where he echoed his commitment to creating more housing, but stresses the need for local consultation, and importantly, the role of plans to frame this growth. He also answered a question about the need for SME housebuilder support – which he advocated – good news for the custom and self build sector.
Watch the video (16mins in) on YouTube
Image credit: UK Parliament. Used under Creative Commons creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
