PM Boris Johnson picks his new cabinet – but what about his housing ministers?

Image: BBC

After years of political uncertainty for the country, and for the career of Boris Johnson – who must have been wondering if he would ever get the top job – the former foreign secretary was finally elected Leader of the Conservative Party (and therefore Prime Minister) on 24^th July 2019. Johnson replaces Theresa May after beating Jeremy Hunt in the Conservative leadership election. He quickly took to naming his new-look cabinet, replacing 17 ministers in the process – but what does this mean for housing and planning?

Johnson has appointed Robert Jenrick as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government. He replaces James Brokenshire, who was in the post for little over a year, and who is now left without a department. A relative newcomer to politics, Jenrick was elected MP for Newark in a 2014 by-election and quickly rose to the front benches, being named Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury in 2018. Interestingly, in 2016, former Chancellor Philip Hammond allocated £7.6m to save the historic Wentworth Woodhouse, near Rotherham, after he was lobbied by several MPs, including Jenrick, who was described as a “heritage expert” by John Healey (Labour’s Shadow Secretary of State for Housing). Following this, he was described by the charity SAVE to be “Parliament’s Greatest Champion of Heritage”. At 37, Jenrick is the youngest member of Johnson’s new look cabinet and becomes the third housing secretary in two years.

It is a similar story for the accompanying role of Minister of State for Housing and Planning, to which Esther McVey has been appointed. McVey replaces Kit Malthouse, who occupied the post for a year. McVey’s career spans several fields, although she is probably most well-known for her stint as a television presenter in the 1990s and early 2000s. She also had an intermittent involvement with her family’s construction company – which specialised in demolition and site clearance, land reclamation, and regeneration – as well as roles with various other businesses and initiatives.

She has represented the constituency of Tatton in Cheshire (George Osborne’s former seat) since the 2017 election, having first been returned by residents of Wirral West in 2010. She lost that seat in 2015 and spent the intervening two years working at a public affairs firm. McVey’s most prominent role in government has been as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which saw the department role out universal credit. Recently, she pitched for the Conservative leadership, only to be eliminated in the first round. McVey and Jenrick have a history of working together, as Jenrick was Parliamentary Private Secretary to McVey in 2015 during her time as an Employment Minister. In a similar fashion to Jenrick, McVey becomes the ninth housing minister in nine years.

Despite Johnson’s penchant for costly infrastructure projects (the Garden Bridge and Emirates Air Line cable car come to mind), both he and McVey have expressed scepticism at High Speed 2 and suggested it may be up for review. In their first public remarks, McVey and Jenrick have indicated that the supply of sufficient housing stock and helping people onto the housing ladder are both key  policy objectives, with McVey hinting at a cut in Stamp Duty and Jenrick stating that unlocking brownfield sites and protecting the green belt are priorities.

Nothing we haven’t heard before then…