Angela Rayner has been appointed levelling up secretary, a role commonly also known as housing secretary.
She replaced the outgoing Conservative minister Michael Gove, following Labour’s landslide victory in the General Election.
As well as being housing secretary, Rayner is the deputy prime minister.
She is the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, and has held the housing brief in Labour’s shadow cabinet since 2023.
Labour’s housing pledges include delivering new towns, promoting building on the ‘grey belt’, reforming planning, as well as building 1.5 million homes over the course of the parliament.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Angela Rayner has inherited a housing emergency at boiling point. Homelessness has hit shameful records, more social homes are sold off and demolished each year than built, and private renting is entirely broken.
“The Secretary of State has her work cut out, but having grown up in a social home herself she knows better than anyone that building decent, affordable social housing is the best way to curb the current crisis and provide the foundations on which society can thrive.
“Labour committed in their manifesto to the biggest increase in social housing in a generation – now Angela Rayner has the opportunity to live up to those words. We need 90,000 social rent homes a year to clear waiting lists and eradicate homelessness. But her first task must be to bring forward a strong bill in the King’s Speech that makes renting safer, secure and more affordable.”
At the time of writing Labour has won 412 seats to the Conservatives 121. The Liberal Democrats also made a comeback at the election, winning 71 seats.
In terms of other key appointments, Rachel Reeves has become the first ever female Chancellor of the Exchequer.
