IN JANUARY I wrote of the appointment of Dominic Raab, the 16th Housing Minister since 1997, “that he is tipped to go places in government and is likely to be moved long before he will be able to bring his enormous ability to bear on the housing crisis”.

I urged him to “tell the Prime Minister that he will not accept any promotion or (ministerial portfolio) move this side of the 2022 general election so that he can make a difference.”

I said that I wouldn’t “hold my breath” and that I wouldn’t “bother reading the inevitable profile and interview with the new minister that will appear in Inside Housing magazine because he will be gone before I have reached the end of the third paragraph”.

On Monday Dominic Raab became the latest “here today, gone tomorrow” Housing Minister as he has replaced David Davies as Brexit Secretary.

Please, Mrs May, you promised “strong and stable” government. That would be a joke if it wasn’t so tragic, not least for housing.

Please give us a Housing Minister who will do something positive for the poorest of the poor, who will ensure that council homes with social rents are built, and ensure that “the operationally messy, socially unfair and unforgiving” universal credit (as described by former PM, John Major) does not continue to wreck the private rented sector and lead tenants into unprecedented levels of rent arrears and debt.

I didn’t hold my breath with Dominic Raab, nor will I with Number 17.

Andy Winter is Chief Executive of Brighton Housing Trust