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Who is new housing minister Stuart Andrew?
Grainne Cuffe explains everything we know so far about the new housing minister
Once again we have a new housing minister. This is something that had become a regular occurrence, but one we have not seen in a while as Christopher Pincher held the term for nearly two years – a lifetime when it comes to housing ministers.
The person to fill Mr Pincher’s shoes is Stuart Andrew. The MP for Pudsey joins the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) from the role of deputy chief whip after prime minister Boris Johnson’s latest reshuffle.
This is the 20th housing minister since 1997. The first questions on a lot of people’s lips after finding out that the low-profile Mr Andrew had been appointed housing minister were who is he and what can we expect?
Born in Anglesey in Wales, 50-year-old Mr Andrew has served as MP for the Pudsey constituency in West Yorkshire since 2010 and as deputy chief whip from 13 February 2020 to today.
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Mr Andrew was first elected as a Conservative councillor to Wrexham County Borough Council in 1995.
After an unsuccessful bid to become MP for Wrexham in 1997, he defected to Labour in 1998, citing issues with the “direction of the party”.
In 1999, he was re-elected as a Labour councillor, but resigned from the council later that year.
Mr Andrew rejoined the Conservative Party in 2000 and then moved to Leeds, where he was elected to Leeds City Council in 2003.
He became the MP for Pudsey, a constituency in between Leeds and Bradford, in the 2010 general election, taking the seat from Labour with a majority of 1,659 votes. In the last election, he increased that majority to nearly 4,000 votes.
Mr Andrew was appointed vice-chair of the Conservative Party on 23 September 2016, with a particular responsibility for cities.
He supported Brexit.
In terms of his voting history, in 2016, Mr Andrew, along with 71 other Conservative MPs, voted against an amendment to the Housing and Planning Bill that would require private landlords to make their homes “fit for human habitation”.
He has also previously voted to phase out secure tenancies and to require those on high incomes living in social housing to pay market rent.
He has consistently voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability and has generally voted in support of the bedroom tax, which sees social housing tenants have their housing benefit reduced when found to have excess bedrooms.
His responsibilities as housing minister will include homeownership programmes, housing strategy, housing delivery, Home England stewardship, the Affordable Housing Programme, planning reform, homebuying and selling, and planning casework.
