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Who has been Britain’s best housing minister?

The next prime minister, Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt, will inevitably reshuffle the cabinet once they are in office, and that could mean a new housing minister.

The existing housing minister, Kit Malthouse, became the 16th MP to hold this role in 18 years when he took office in July last year.

Malthouse replaced Dominic Raab, who spent just six months in the role, before being appointed Brexit Secretary.

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Raab’s predecessor, Alok Sharma, also held the housing ministerial post for just six months, which is clearly not enough time to fix the broken housing market, which largely explains why many people are frustrated with the merry-go-round of housing ministers.

But who has actually been the most successful housing minister since 1997?

New research for lettings and estate agent, Benham and Reeves, aims to answer this question and has focussed specifically on on the average number of homes built per month during their time in the role.

The study found that Yvette Cooper has been the best housing minister since 1997 with an average of 17,984 homes built per month during her time in charge of housing between May 2005 and January 2008.

Keith Hill ranks second with 16,619 dwellings completed per month between June 2003 and May 2005.

Alok Sharma also saw the average number of dwellings completed per month top 16,000 during his time as housing minister.

Mark Prisk, Grant Schapps, Kris Hopkins and Jon Healey rank as the worst-performing housing ministers, with the level of homes built falling below an average of 13,000 per month.

Where housing association and local authority dwellings are concerned, Margaret Beckett has the best performance, with 3,079 built per month while she was housing minister. 

Dominic Raab and Alok Sharma also oversaw more than 3,000 social housing completions on average per month during their time in the role.

Director of Benham and Reeves, Anita Mehra, commented: “It’s no secret that the government has been pretty abysmal when it comes to delivering enough homes to meet the demand of the nation’s aspirational homeowners.

“It is encouraging to see that some of the more recent housing ministers have pulled their socks up a tad, but this has been insufficient enough to address the current situation in a meaningful manner.

“While we’ve been failing to build enough homes, the population has been swelling, house prices have been increasing and wages have failed to keep pace. All of which has exacerbated an issue that was already quite dire, to begin with. No doubt yet another name will take over the role when the next circus comes to town bringing little change with it.

“Until we address the issue of supply and allow the housing minister to operate as a Secretary of State in order to actually do something meaningful, we will continue to see an inadequate number of homes delivered by the government.”

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Poll: Do you agree that Yvette Cooper has been the best housing minister since 1997?

PLACE YOUR VOTE BELOW

  • James B

    Best ? Have we had a one with any competence or any experience?

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    cooper is vile

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    • 11 July 2019 10:11 AM

    When you think about it housing is probably the most important concern of anyone.
    Why politicians won't give it a Secretary of State beats me!

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    Saying Cooper was the best based on the amount of houses built during her tenure is nonsense.
    The amount of houses built will depend on planning policy, state of the economy, and countless other things the Housing Minster at the time will have no to little control over. The economy from 2005-2008 was relatively strong right up until the collapse.
    If anything the amount of houses built during a certain Housing Ministers tenure is probably more attributable to those who were in post before them years before them.

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    hopefully cooper will lose at next ge and join hubby in well-deserved ignominy for her traitorous activities

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    They are all ****. They use this post as a stepping stone to bigger and better things thus all the virtue signalling.

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