Lee Rowley has returned as Housing Minister for the second time after Rishi Sunak reshuffled his cabinet earlier this week.
The MP returns to the role after serving a brief tenure under former Prime Minister Liz Truss in late 2022 and replacing Rachel Maclean, who was sacked just after nine months.
He has also served as Construction Minister under Boris Johnson before resigning over the then PM’s handling of the Chris Pincher scandal.
The Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has welcomed the reappointment of Lee Rowley as the 16th Housing Minister since 2010, with Brian Berry, chief executive of the FMB commenting: “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 who was a strong advocate for SME house builders.”
He continued: “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.”
