Housing secretary Simon Clarke leaves role after 49 days

Mr Clarke leaves the role after the announcement that Rishi Sunak is the country’s new prime minister, following Liz Truss announcing her resignation last week.

Mr Clarke was given the role after being a vocal supporter of Ms Truss in her leadership campaign. Over the weekend, he also pledged his support to Boris Johnson’s bid to become the prime minister again, before Mr Johnson revealed that he would not be bidding to replace Ms Truss.

It has been a great privilege to serve as Secretary of State @luhc, working alongside some terrific people to #LevelUp our communities, just as it was before that as Chief Secretary @hmtreasury.

— Simon Clarke MP (@SimonClarkeMP)

It has been a great privilege to serve as Secretary of State @luhc, working alongside some terrific people to #LevelUp our communities, just as it was before that as Chief Secretary @hmtreasury.

— Simon Clarke MP (@SimonClarkeMP) October 25, 2022

Last month, Mr Clarke was forced to write to MPs to correct the record after mistakenly claiming that only 24 tall buildings in England required fire safety remediation work during a parliamentary session.

He was the third housing secretary of the year, and replaced Greg Clark, who spent three months in the role after Mr Johnson announced that he would be stepping down as PM following mass resignations by MPs in the wake of the Christopher Pincher saga.

Mr Clark replaced Michael Gove, who was sacked by Mr Johnson in July after spending nine months in the role.

There are now strong rumours that Mr Sunak could be lining up Mr Gove to return to the role of housing secretary. During his time in the role, Mr Gove attracted a number of fans for his work in trying to fix the building safety crisis and pushing through the Social Housing Regulation Bill and the Renters Reform White Paper.