Wannabe Tory leader Kemi Badenoch (main image) has been appointed by Rishi Sunak as his shadow housing secretary.

The 44-year-old, who replaces Michael Gove after he stood down from politics at the general election, was previously Rishi’s business secretary and has been widely tipped as one of the frontrunners to replace him.

She retained her North West Essex seat at the election with a 2,610 majority over her nearest rival, Labour’s candidate Issy Waite. But she was the only Tory MP to do this – all the other Essex seats fell to either Labour (5) Reform (2) including Nigel Farage in Clacton and the Libdems.

Badenoch was a minister of state at the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities between September 2021 and July 2022 during the Johnson premiership, resigning in protest at his leadership failings and unsuccessfully standing to replace him as Tory leader afterwards.

Landlords

Her brief tenure at DLUHC means diving her current views on landlords and the private rented sector are difficult to divine, although in 2015  she wrote a report on the sector in London that called for rogue landlords to be removed from the housing market when she was a member of the London Assembly.

At the time she said: “We can improve living conditions for tenants with practical, common-sense measures rather than excessive regulation.

“Let’s arm councils with the power to issue fixed penalty notices… and let’s encourage landlords through the Mayor’s London Rental Standard to put in place pre-defined arrangements in case of an emergency.”

She was also a keen supporter of the now-shelved Renters (Reform) Bill, saying in 2022 that: “The Bill will deliver the biggest change to rental law in a generation, improving the lives of millions of renters by improving standards in the private and socially rented sector.”