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Housing minister to be replaced after just 62 days
Marcus Jones is set to be replaced as housing minister after just 62 days in the role.
The MP for Nuneaton, Arley and Hartshill revealed on Twitter that he was “sad to leave the government after serving under three prime ministers during two spells covering five-and-a-half years”.
Mr Jones added: “I will fully support our new PM and government from the back benches, but will be vocal in taking up the issues that matter to my constituents in Nuneaton, Arley and Hartshill.”
He takes with him the unenviable record of the shortest time in the housing minister role after being in place for just 62 days.
This beats the previous record of Stuart Andrew, the man Mr Jones replaced in July, who resigned after 148 days.
An announcement on Mr Jones’ replacement is expected in the next 24 hours, Inside Housing understands.
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Rough sleeping and housing minister Eddie Hughes also took to Twitter to announce that he will “hand back my red box in return for the opportunity to spend yet more time working for my constituents in Walsall North, championing their causes in parliament”.
He thanked the rough sleeping and housing sectors for their support during his time as minister.
Mr Hughes wrote in Inside Housing in June that he hopes the government’s Social Housing Regulation Bill will take a “wrecking ball” to the current system and shift power into tenants’ hands.
The announcements follows a flurry of new appointments as part of a cabinet shake-up from new prime minister Liz Truss.
Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, has become the fourth housing secretary in just under a year, replacing Greg Clark who spent just two months in the role.
Inside Housing looked into Mr Clarke’s background and voting history earlier this week to try and get a sense of what type of housing secretary he might be.
Mr Clarke’s appointment could be positive in terms of building new homes and achieving net zero.
He has publicly supported regeneration projects, particularly in the North. In May, he tweeted that it would be a “disaster for the Conservatives” if “we do not build the homes we need, where we need them”.
On building safety, it emerged in January that a leaked letter from Mr Clarke to then-housing secretary Michael Gove essentially gave the go-ahead for a scheme for developers to fund remediation for buildings taller than 11 metres.
In terms of voting history, in September 2018, Mr Clarke voted against higher fines for landlords or letting agencies breaching the law, limiting what tenants can be charged for.
In the same month, he also voted not to further restrict the circumstances in which landlords and letting agents can charge tenants for losses arising from a breach of a tenancy agreement.
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