Matthew Pennycook has been appointed as the new Housing Minister in Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet following Labour’s landslide win at the polls.
The appointment follows that of Angela Rayner as Housing Secretary. Under the Conservative’s the role was held by Lee Rowley, who lost his seat following the election. Pennycook had been his opposite number in the Shadow Cabinet.
Pennycook, who has been the Labour MP for Greenwich and Woolwich since 2015, has previously served on the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee and was Parliamentary Private Secretary to John Healey, the Shadow Minister of State for Housing, until June 2016.
He returned to the Opposition frontbench as Shadow Minister for Climate Change in 2020 and was appointed Shadow Minister for Housing and Planning in December 2021.
Nathan Emerson, CEO of Propertymark, commented on the appointment: “Propertymark welcomes the appointment of Matthew Pennycook as Housing Minister within the newly formed cabinet. Housing must play a pivotal role for the government moving forwards and in real terms, delivering over 1,100 new homes every single working day for the next five years will take immense planning and enormous stakeholder engagement to achieve.
“There needs to be a long-term cross-party approach with continuity built in as standard – we should never be looking at a housing plan as an insular five-year government term, in case of any change down the line.
“The housing sector is crying out for a vastly increased supply to keep pace with demand, there simply can be no room for error moving forwards or we may end up with prices artificially rocketing due to consumer desperation in finding a suitable home for their needs.
“There must be a broad mix of sustainably built homes that brings much-needed stock to both buyers and renters. The plan must be delivered with precision and in a way that is connected with wider Government planning to ensure key infrastructure is provisioned for as the population further grows.”
