Christopher Pincher replaces Esther McVey as Housing Minister

After just seven months as Housing Minister, Esther McVey has been replaced by Christopher Pincher, who becomes the tenth housing minister in the last ten years and the fourth in the last three years.

Christopher Pincher has been the MP for Tamworth since 2010. Before being appointed as Housing Minster, Pincher was previously Minister of State for Europe and the Americas at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and Deputy Chief Whip, Treasurer of HM Household.

Pincher’s voting record on housing shows he has consistently voted to reduce housing benefit for social tenants and voted against raising housing welfare benefits. He has also voted for ending lifetime tenancies and for charging market rents to high earning council tenants.

Upon his appointment, Pincher said that he was delighted to be appointed as the Minister of State for Housing and that The Government will deliver on their commitment to build the housing that people need.

The Government has previously committed to delivering 300,000 homes a year by the mid 2020s in a bid to rectify the UK’s housing crisis, but as of yet, there has been no clear long-term plan to deliver this ambitious goal. 

The need for social housing and affordable housing is now at its peak. In recent years we have seen a rise in homelessness, with more families living in temporary accommodation than ever before. Data from the office for national statistics shows that, aside from a temporary dip in 2009, house prices have been exceeding wages since the early 2000s, meaning very few people can afford to own their own home.

There is an urgent need for the stability of a longstanding housing minister to provide clarity on the design, quality and delivery methods for building the desperately needed new homes and to provide ample social housing.

Previous Housing Minister, Esther McVey, had championed the use of modern methods of construction to help meet the demand of affordable homes. She dedicated a major funding investment of £30 million to back the use of MMC in the UK housing industry and appointed Mark farmer as an independent champion of MMC to advise on bringing modern innovation to the housing sector.  

The housing crisis didn’t happen overnight, so it goes without saying that it won’t be solved overnight. Pincher has a huge challenge on his hands in his new role and we are keen to see if he will follow in his predecessors’ footsteps and continue to embrace the use of MMC. Modular housing solutions, like those that we deliver at ISO Spaces, are a cost-effective and efficient way to deliver the desperately needed housing. 

The benefits of modular housing: 

Speed – modular homes can be manufactured offsite on a dedicated production line and then assembled onsite in a matter of days, with less disruption than onsite construction.   

Sustainability – through greater precision in the manufacturing process, modular homes are built more efficiently with reduced construction and material waste. 

Flexibility – modular homes are adaptable and customisable to suit the site and brief, adding or removing units with relative ease and are permanently relocatable. 

Find out more about ISO Spaces’ permanently-portable modular housing solutions here.

We wish Christopher Pincher a long and successful posting in his new role.