Keir Starmer has appointed Angela Rayner as his secretary of state for levelling up and housing, following the Labour Party's landslide victory last week (July 5).
Rayner, who is the MP for Ashton-under-Lyne has been an MP since May 2017.
Starmer has also appointed Matthew Pennycook, the MP for Greenwich and his shadow housing minister, to her department as well as Jim McMahon, the MP for Oldham West who was not in the shadow cabinet before the election.
Pennycook said: "Tackling the housing crisis and boosting economic growth is integral to national renewal. Time to get to work."
The role of housing minister has seen significant turnover in recent years, with 15 people holding the role over the 14 years since the Conservative party came to power in 2010.
Pennycook's predecessor, Lee Rowley, held the position twice: once for a month under Liz Truss's brief premiership and then again when Rishi Sunak appointed him to the role in November 2023 during a reshuffle.
Labour has pledged to 1.5 million new homes over the course of the coming parliament and restore the mandatory housing targets which the previous Conservative goverment scrapped.
Rayner is deputy leader of the Labour Party and has also been appointed as deputy prime minister, only the second woman to hold the role after Therese Coffey, during Liz Truss's brief stint in government.
alina.khan@ft.com
