Keir Starmer has appointed Matthew Pennycook as Labour's new housing minister in the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. 

With the party having already announced a raft of ambitious house building plans, he already has plenty on his to-do list. 

But who is Pennycook, what will his top priorities be, and how does he plan to fix the country's long-standing housing crisis? 

What is the housing minister's job? 

Matthew Pennycook will work alongside Angela Rayner, Labour's deputy prime minister and secretary of state for the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, and Jim McMahon who is expected to take on the local government brief.

Pennycook finds himself in a role that has seen 16 different minsters in 14 years of Conservative rule. There were a further nine ministers during the previous 13 years under Labour's helm.

Pennycook posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, following his appointment saying: 'It is a real honour to have been appointed Minister.

'Tackling the housing crisis and boosting economic growth is integral to national renewal. Time to get to work.'

What are Labour's housing plans?  

Pennycook is tasked with delivering Labour's plan to fix the country's housing crisis, addressing the shortage of homes as well improving the rights of renters and leaseholders. 

His top priority will be delivering on Labour's pledge to build 1.5million homes over the next five years.

Labour plans to do this by shaking up the planning system, allowing more homes to be built on less attractive parts of the green belt known as the 'grey belt' and helping public bodies such as councils buy land for homes more cheaply.

There is also the unfinished Renters (Reform) bill to get through Parliament. This was set to include the ban of section 21 no-fault eviction notices, though some Conservative MPs were attempting to water down the plans before the election. 

There is also the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act, which despite securing Royal Assent in May, is yet to come into effect with considerable detail still required, meaning it needs to be enacted over the coming years by Labour.

Who is Matthew Pennycook?

Matthew Pennycook, 41, was the shadow minster for Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities - which has been renamed under Labour - for three years prior to the election. 

He is the MP for Greenwich and Woolwich in London having been elected in 2015.

In last week's election he won a huge majority, beating his closest rival by 18,366 votes. 

Prior to his political career, he worked for a number of charities and voluntary sector organisations including the Child Poverty Action Group and the Fair Pay Network.

He also worked as a researcher at the Resolution Foundation, an independent think-tank focused on improving the living standards for those on low to middle incomes. 

What are his priorities as housing minister? 

It's clear that the Renters (Reform) Bill and the scrapping of no fault evictions is a top priority for Pennycook.

On 20 June this year he posted on X: 'The Tories broke their 2019 manifesto pledge to scrap Section 21 no-fault evictions. 

'Labour will deliver where the Tories have failed and act to provide renters with the long-term security and better rights and conditions they deserve. Renters will be better off with Labour.'

In an interview with Kay Burley on Sky News he said: 'We're going to enact legislation that properly protects renters, that truly and descively levels the playing field between landlords and tenants, and makes renters better off. We're going to do it as a priority and as soon as we possibly can.'

However, it is perhaps the 1.5million housebuilding target that will weigh heaviest on the new housing minister.

To achieve the target he is tasked with reforming the planning system. 

Planning departments have been affected by local Government budget cuts in recent years, creating a planning application backlog which some say is hampering investment in new housing. 

Pennycook aims to fix this by ensuring councils have up-to-date local plans and giving them cash to hire more planning officers, funded by a further stamp duty surcharge on overseas buyers.

In a recent interview with the i newspaper, Pennycook said: 'We have a huge package of planning reforms. There is money for planning. We've already announced a £25million shot in the arm to get the system working an get more applications going through.' 

He also confirmed that Labour will be prepared to build on parts of the green belt, the plan being to target lower-quality, 'ugly' green belt land, known as 'grey belt' land, for development. 

Pennycook also made clear that reform of compulsory purchase rules will have to happen for Labour to deliver on its house building targets.

Doing so could help public bodies such as councils buy land for homes more cheaply. 

Compulsory purchase is when a public body is able to force a landowner to sell, to allow new housing to be built. 

At the moment some landowners are able to charge huge sums, based on the value that the land will eventually have when it has planning permission and is converted into homes. 

Agricultural land is worth an average of £25,000 per hectare in the UK whereas development land with planning approval is worth an average of £1.95million - about 80 times more, according to analysis by Capital Economics. 

Pennycook said: 'A huge part of the pressure on development is the cost of land, so we have to make further changes to CPO to ensure the market price of land when we are assembling and bringing forward development is based on a fair price.

'At the moment, there is a discretionary power which certain public bodies can use if they come and say to the secretary of state for special permssion but that's an extra layer of planning permission, which slows the system.

'We want a range of public bodies to have the certainty of being able to use this specifc power so that we can get more development across the country going.'