Lee Rowley, the Conservative MP for North East Derbyshire and Lia Nici, the Conservative MP for Great Grimsby, have been appointed under secretary’s of state at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, replacing Marcus Dixon and Eddie Hughes.

Both Rowley and Nici will work alongside Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland Conservative MP Simon Clarke who was appointed  Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities when Prime Minister Liz Truss announced her cabinet last week.

42-year-old Rowley (pictured left) was, before becoming an MP 2017, working in financial services and management consultancy including stints at Barclays, KPMG, Santander, and Co-op Insurance. Rowley had also contributed research on welfare and housing to the centre-right think tank, the Centre for Social Justice and was a Westminster councillor for several years, albeit with no housing involvement.

Nici (pictured right) told a coastal communities debate last week that the Government’s central mission was to level up the UK by spreading opportunity more equally across the country, bringing left-behind communities up to the level of more prosperous areas.

“I am delighted to have the opportunity to set out our ambitious plans to realise the potential of every place and every person across the UK,” she told the Westminster Hall debate.

“We have already made progress towards levelling up coastal communities through initiatives such as rolling out gigabit broadband, introducing a fairer school funding formula, opening freeports, increasing the national living wage, recruiting more police officers, and further local devolution with more powers being passed to local people, away from Westminster.”

Meanwhile Clarke worked under Rishi Sunak at HM Treasury as the department’s chief secretary, but the 37-year-old has some housing credentials having worked at what used to be the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government for seven months in 2020.