June 2009

Healey the new Housing Minister

JOHN HEALEY MP has succeeded Margaret Beckett as Housing Minister in the latest Government re-shuffle.

	JOHN HEALEY MP

He is the third incumbent of the post in nine months, with Margaret Beckett having succeeded Caroline Flint as Housing Minister last October.

 Mr Healey is MP for Wentworth in South Yorkshire. He was elected for the first time as an MP in 1997 and is a former financial secretary to the treasury and was Parliamentary private secretary to Gordon Brown in 1999, during the current Prime Minister’s long tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

 As Housing Minister at the department of Communities and Local Government, Mr Healey is entitled to attend Cabinet but is not a member of it.

 The new Secretary for Communities and Local Government — Mr Healey’s boss — is John Denham MP, who succeeds Hazel Blears MP. Again it is a case of him being the third incumbent in quick time, with Ms Blears having succeeded Ruth Kelly MP to the post in late June last year.