"The long-term issue of housing delivery is one that simply can’t be addressed when the housing minister is shown the door within less than a year of holding the position"
- Mitchell Fasanya - Searchland
Searchland analysed the performance of each housing minister since Hilary Armstrong took the role back in May 1997, looking at the average number of homes built per month while each person held the position.
The last two housing ministers, Rachel Maclean and Lee Rowley, have not been included due to a lack of dwelling completion data during their time in the role.
Of the 23 housing ministers analysed by Searchland, 14 were Conservative versus nine from the Labour Party.
Based purely on dwellings completed alone, the research shows that Lucy Frazer has been the most successful in the position. Frazer, who was appointed to the role by Rishi Sunak following Liz Truss’ short reign as PM, held the position for just four short months.
However, in that time, some 18,846 dwellings were completed on average per month, the highest level of completions under any housing minister.
After Frazer, Esther McVey ranks as the second most successful, with an average of 17,978 homes completed per month during her time as housing minister between July 2019 to February 2020.
Yvette Cooper, who was housing minister between May 2005 and January 2008, takes bronze with an average of 17,984 homes completed per month, also making her the most successful Labour candidate to have held the position.
Since 1997, the nine Labour housing ministers have held the position for 156 months versus 153 for the 14 Conservative housing ministers.
During that time, they have averaged 17 months per minister within the position versus just 11 for Conservative housing ministers.
Conservative housing ministers have overseen the delivery of 217,134 new homes, equating to an average of 1,419 per month, while Labour housing ministers have seen a total of 136,931 homes built or 878 per month.
Co-founder and CEO of Searchland, Mitchell Fasanya, commented: “It’s interesting to see that despite the revolving door of housing ministers in recent times, they’ve overseen some of the highest rates of housing completions this side of the Millenium.
"But, regardless of which party is in power, I think we can all agree that a far greater degree of stability is required if we are to actually address the housing crisis.
"The long-term issue of housing delivery is one that simply can’t be addressed when the housing minister is shown the door within less than a year of holding the position.”
