Rowley gets building safety brief as DLUHC finalises roles
Former housing minister Lee Rowley has been handed the building safety brief as roles at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) are clarified.
Lee Rowley has been named building safety minister (picture: David Woolfall)
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Mr Rowley will also be responsible for local government finance and building energy efficiency, according to DLUHC’s website.
Building safety remains a key issue as property owners, thousands of leaseholders and the government continue to grapple with the costs of fire safety work post-Grenfell. Housing secretary Michael Gove, who was reinstated in the role last month, has been on a mission to get developers to pay for defective schemes they have worked on over the past 30 years.
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At the same time, the G15 has warned that its members are expected to spend £3.6bn by 2036 on building safety work.
It has been nearly two weeks since Rishi Sunak started his reshuffle, but yesterday it was confirmed that former Treasury minister Lucy Frazer has replaced Mr Rowley as housing and planning minister.
Ms Frazer, a former barrister, is the fifth MP to hold the role of housing minister this year.
The South East Cambridgeshire MP also has responsibility for the government’s Affordable Homes Programme, homeownership and overseeing Homes England.
In a tweet, she said: “Building the homes we need and helping more people into homeownership are rightly important priorities for the government. Delighted to be given the opportunity to contribute to this work as minister for housing and planning.”
Elsewhere at DLUHC, another former Treasury minister, Felicity Buchan, has been made responsible for homelessness and rough sleeping. Ms Buchan also has supported housing and the private rented sector as part of her brief.
The supported housing sector has been in the spotlight after a cross-party group of MPs last month published a damning report arguing that the system of exempt supported accommodation is a “complete mess” and that immediate government intervention is needed.
Since 2019 Ms Buchan has been MP for Kensington, the area of London where the Grenfell Tower fire took place.
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