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New housing minister Christopher Pincher (picture: Petros Karadijas/AP/Shutterstock)
New housing minister Christopher Pincher (picture: Petros Karadijas/AP/Shutterstock)

Who is new housing minister Christopher Pincher?

Here is all we know so far about the new housing minister.

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Who is new housing minister Christoper Pincher? #ukhousing

Former foreign office minister Chris Pincher takes housing brief, but what do we know of him? #ukhousing

When Christopher Pincher sent his first tweet as new housing minister yesterday evening, he was given an immediate taste of what to expect.

Within the hour he had received multiple replies from tenants campaigning around the cladding scandal.

He also received a tweet from a former holder of the post, Gavin Barwell, who went on to be Theresa’s May chief of staff, and he excitedly told Mr Pincher that it was a “great job!”.

But what do we know of the new housing minister? And what can we expect?

The 50-year-old MP brings with him a variety of experience. After studying history at the London School of Economics, he spent the first 18 years of his career working for an IT consultancy firm – including spells in Saudi Arabia and France.

Born in Walsall, he became MP for the West Midlands constituency of Tamworth in 2010, having first joined the Conservative Party in 1987.


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Under Ms May he was an assistant whip at the Treasury and then made comptroller of the household, taking on whipping duties in the House of Commons. He was then made deputy chief whip in January 2018.

Brexit-backing Mr Pincher later made it to the Foreign Office.

In prime minister Boris Johnson’s first reshuffle in July, he was made minister for Europe and the Americas. Mr Pincher also once served as Philip Hammond’s private parliamentary secretary while he was at the Foreign Office.

Looking at Mr Pincher’s voting record relating to housing, he voted for the bedroom tax and phasing out secure tenancies. He also consistently voted to “require those on high incomes living in social housing to pay market rents”.

His records also show he voted for a reduction in spending on welfare and for selling England’s state-owned forests.

While the new housing minister appears to not have vast experience of the housing world, he does have previous knowledge of the sector. For five years Mr Pincher was a director at Staffordshire-based firm JT Leavesley, before resigning in 2016, according to Companies House records.

The company’s property operations include “developing a number of brown and greenfield sites for mixed-use occupation”, according to its website.

Despite no longer being a director of the company, he received a £5,000 donation from JT Leavesley last month, the parliament’s register of interests show.

As ever, there will be plenty of people queuing up to bend the new housing minister’s ear on a host of issues. Cladding campaigners may take some comfort from the fact that he appears to have a reasonable awareness of the issue, since he wrote a blog on his website shortly after the Grenfell Tower tragedy.

But as the 10th housing minister in the past decade, the campaigners, like many others, will be hoping Mr Pincher hangs around long enough to make a positive impact.

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