Rachel Maclean has become the 15th housing minister since 2010, and the sixth in the last 12 months.
The MP for Redditch in Worcestershire since 2017 was previously vice chair of the Conservative Party.
Prior to that she held a number of junior ministerial positions, including as a stint at the Treasury and at the Department for Transport. She was minister of state at the Ministry of Justice between 7 September and 28 October 2022.
Maclean backed Sajid Javid, then Kemi Badenoch, and finally Liz Truss in the July–September 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.
Before entering politics she worked at HSBC.
She replaces Lucy Frazer as minister of state within the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. It has been assumed that she will take on the housing brief, but this has yet to be confirmed by government.
Frazer left the post after just three months to become culture secretary.
Knight Frank’s head of planning, Stuart Baillie, said: “When Lucy Frazer was appointed the first Minister for Housing AND Planning we all hoped this might be a sign that Government was placing appropriate emphasis on getting the proposed planning reforms right. She’s already been replaced by Rachel Maclean, who becomes the UK’s fifteenth housing minister since 2010, and the sixth in the last 12 months – how can we sensibly plan for any kind of future like this? This has been a ‘revolving door’ role for years; we need to find a way to keep Housing Ministers in post for longer than a few months if we have any hope of making serious and sustained improvements to the fractured housing and planning system.”
Nick Fell, head of residential at Rapleys, added: “Another cabinet reshuffle, another housing minister. The housing industry is in desperate need of certainty and commitment, not a revolving door. It is impossible to bring forward much needed housing in the UK without a clear and committed strategy with someone familiar spearheading it. The fact we cannot even have a housing minister for longer than three months highlights the real problem – politics is getting in the way of priorities. Something needs to be done that will fix this broken system, fast. With a real shortage of housing and delays to sites within the planning system, there can be no bigger priority than solving our housing and planning strategy.”
Nick Sanderson, CEO of Audley Group, said: “The latest housing minister barely had time to put pen to paper before becoming victim of the latest cabinet reshuffle. Lucy Frazer had just 100 days in post. And this isn’t uncommon given the incoming housing minister will be the 15th since 2010. The UK housing market has multiple complex issues, ones that need urgent attention, but the lack of continuity over the last decade has done very little to steady the ship. It was twelve months ago that the Housing with Care taskforce was announced to look at the under-provision of retirement living in the UK. This was a landmark moment, which signalled a change in thinking, but momentum has stalled and the taskforce is yet to get started. The new minister must refresh this approach and put the real issues front and centre. There is a significant opportunity to reform how we look after people as they get older, and at the same time tackle issues that plague the housing market. Let’s hope the incoming minister is given the chance, and crucially the time, to make real change.”
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