Back to the future for Gove

摘要

Whoever supplies letterheads to Whitehall is on to a winner. The latest plate on the door to be changed is the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHLG) which was only named three-and-a-half years ago. Previously, it was the Department for Communities and Local Government and if we step back into the early 2000s, it was the Office for the Deputy Prime Minister and from 1997 to 2001 part of a vast department encompassing local government, transport and the regions. Whatever its name, the department was always perceived as low down the Whitehall pecking order and an early rung on the ladder for ambitious politicians with a revolving door of five secretaries of state since 2015. Until last year it had become barely more than the old 1960s ministry of housing and planning, reflected in its downgrading from a department to a ministry in January 2018. That, however, has now dramatically changed with the appointment of heavy-hitter Michael Gove as secretary of state. One Whitehall insider was quoted as describing the newly renamed Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) as 'a colossus', which must be about the first time the communities and local government department has received such an accolade since 1997, and the creation of the vast and unwieldly Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions.