Fallon confirmed as construction minister

Michael Fallon has been confirmed as the new construction minister, after the business department finalised the portfolios of its new ministerial team.

Fallon, the Conservative MP for Sevenoaks, replaces Mark Prisk, who has been moved to the Department for Communities and Local Government to take on the housing brief.

Fallon was first elected to parliament in 1983, as the MP for Darlington, and remained until he was defeated in the 1992 election by Labour’s Alan Milburn.

He was re-elected to parliament as MP for Sevenoaks at the 1997 election.

Fallon was a junior minister in the education department in Margaret Thatcher’s government and then later an assistant whip, in both the Thatcher and Major governments.

On his re-election in 1997 he became the opposition’s spokesman on trade and industry and then the shadow financial secretary to the Treasury. Since 1999 he has been a member of the Treasury select committee.