The new housing minister has been announced.
Gavin Barwell has been appointed Minister of State for Housing and Planning, and also Minister for London.
The news was tweeted by Barwell yesterday morning, who said he was “hugely honoured”.
Barwell is the MP for Croydon Central.
His new post is not a Cabinet one, although Sajid Javid, as CLG Secretary, is in the Cabinet.
Barwell has been an MP since 2010, when he got in by 2,969 votes. The following year, he was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Greg Clark, then Minister for Cities and Decentralisation.
In 2012, he was made PPS to Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Education, before becoming a Government Whip.
Barwell was instrumental in securing £25m in funding to rebuild Croydon after the riots.
He also introduced the Mental Health (Discrimination) Act 2013, and helped introduce Lillian’s Law – named after a 14-year-old constituent killed by a driver who had taken illegal drugs.
Earlier this year, he wrote a book called How to Win a Marginal Seat: My Year Fighting for my Political Life. This is an account of the 2015 General Election when he scraped back in by just 165 votes.
While little is known of Barwell’s views on housing, he is keen on protecting green space in his constituency from housing, and also successfully launched a petition to prevent the local council building homes on Croydon’s playing fields.
However, yesterday on Twitter he said: “Look forward to working with councils, housing associations, developers & investors to ensure we build the homes people need and deserve and to working with @MayorofLondon to ensure the continued success of our wonderful, diverse capital – and that all Londoners share in it.”
Barwell’s predecessor Brandon Lewis has moved to the Home Office to become Minister of State for Policing and the Fire Service.
Comments (5)
OPEN MESSAGE TO GAVIN BARWELL, MP, MINISTER FOR HOUSING
Mr Barwell – I believe I speak for many in wishing you every success in your new role.
Please accept the following statement in the spirit it is sincerely meant:
We are here to help you – if you will accept our help.
We look forward to working with you.
Apparently I don’t speak for my trusty Plank.
This is why we will struggle to achieve a cohesive solution to housing the Nation; there is no consistency. Brandon Lewis was beginning to grasp the subject and beginning to have productive meetings with stakeholders. All of that experience, trust and understanding is suddenly reset and the good work begun is lost.
It will take time for Mr Barwell to settle into a new role, he will be introduced to the same close group of advisers, everything is back to square one and the old mistakes will get learned all over again.
We have a civil service that is departmentalised into specialisms, CLG, HMRC, DWP, Housing and planning, there really ought to be someone with foresight to understand that Housing isn’t something that can cope with the vagaries of whim change and in order to achieve anything there has to be intelligent strategic thinking that straddles tradition government departments.
No Robert,when you have a system that moves the Financial Director to become the Sales Director and the Sales Director becomes the Operations Director meanwhile the Operations Director becomes the HR Director and the HR Director is now the Financial Director then you are unlikely to have much cohesion.
No business would ever operate like a government cabinet. Its’ no wonder nothing ever gets done.
Also worth reflecting on the fact that the position as Housing minister is not deemed important enough to get a cabinet seat.
Luckily, however – the cleaners (that would be us…) are still in the same role!