Prime minister David Cameron has appointed Greg Clark as the new secretary of state for communities and local government, as part of his post-election reshuffle of frontbench ministers.

In the last Government, Mr Clark served as planning and decentralisation minister at the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) and helped oversee the National Planning Policy Framework reforms and the introduction of Local Enterprise Partnerships.

In July 2011 Mr Clark was given the role of cities minister to promote the economies of England's urban centres and oversaw a team of civil servants who helped usher in the two waves of City Deals which saw economic powers transferred from Whitehall to local authorities on a case by case basis.