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No place in cabinet for housing minister

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  • 13/05/2010
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No place in cabinet for housing minister
Grant Shapps has been appointed housing minister, but will not be part of the new cabinet.

In the last Labour government, housing was deemed a sufficiently important issue to merit housing minister John Healey a seat at cabinet meetings. But so far there is no sign of this under the new coalition.

A list of senior ministers who attend cabinet meetings alongside the secretaries of state was published last night, and does not list the housing minister.

As secretary of state for communities and local government, Eric Pickles, who will have a seat at the cabinet table, will take responsibility for housing and planning, among other areas. But keeping Shapps’ role outside the inner sanctum might be perceived as a blow to the industry, which had high hopes that a new government might treat housing as a priority.

“Deciding exactly where housing should sit will be an interesting challenge for the new government,” said Robert Sinclair, director of AIFA. “I don’t think the fact that it has not been deemed a cabinet position is in any way sinister. Housing was never that high a priority for the last Government, despite the fact that the minister had a cabinet position.

“But it does fascinate me that the two elements which impact on people’s own long-term stability – housing and pensions – each of which have been the responsibility of more than 10 different ministers over the last 13 years, still occupy such a strange space in government.”

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