James Murray built his reputation in housing rather than Westminster. In Islington he became known as a tough negotiator with developers, then helped Sadiq Khan win the London mayoralty and was put in charge of City Hall’s housing programme.

His parliamentary selection in Ealing North was backed by Unite, but it was not an uncontested coronation. He defeated another deputy mayor and a local councillor in a membership vote.

Keir Starmer promoted him rapidly after his election in 2019. Murray spent most of the opposition years in the Treasury team and entered government as the minister responsible for tax and HM Revenue and Customs. He became Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2025, then Health Secretary after Wes Streeting resigned during the revolt against Starmer in May 2026.

That final promotion said as much about his political temperament as his expertise. A Labour colleague joked that Murray got the job by being “one of the few people nobody hates”. He was loyal, technically competent and unlikely to start another leadership crisis.

Andy Burnham removed him from the Cabinet in July but kept him in government as Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General. Murray had lost seniority, but not his reputation as a safe pair of hands.

What he stands for

Murray’s politics combine interventionist housing policy with Treasury discipline. He is prepared to make developers provide affordable homes and supports council housebuilding, but in national government he accepted tight spending controls, welfare reform and higher taxes on employers.

He is not an ideological campaigner. His method is managerial: set thresholds, change incentives, tighten administration and make existing institutions work harder. That has made him useful to different Labour leaders, but it has also left him without a strong public identity of his own.

What he delivered

At City Hall, Murray designed the 35 per cent affordable-housing threshold. Developers meeting it could avoid lengthy viability negotiations and use a faster planning route. The policy was less ambitious than Khan’s stated goal of making half of new homes affordable, but it changed negotiations in City Hall’s favour. By 2020, about three-quarters of eligible schemes were meeting the 35 per cent level.

He also oversaw the £4.8 billion affordable-homes programme and launched City Hall’s first programme specifically dedicated to building more than 10,000 council homes. Affordable starts supported by the mayor reached 14,544 in 2018/19, the highest annual figure since 2010/11. Almost 4,000 were for social rent, compared with none when Khan first took office.

The weakness was completion. Only about 7,500 mayor-supported affordable homes were completed in 2018/19, still below the annual average achieved during the preceding decade. Much of Murray’s record therefore consisted of allocating money and starting projects that were finished after he had left City Hall.

At the Treasury, he helped abolish non-domiciled tax status and replace it with a residence-based system. He also took the legislation increasing employer National Insurance through the Commons. The rate rose from 13.8 to 15 per cent and the earnings threshold fell from £9,100 to £5,000, partly offset by a larger employment allowance for smaller employers.

That was real delivery, but not painless delivery. The measure raised billions for public services while increasing the cost of employing people, particularly in hospitality, retail, charities and social care. Murray repeatedly defended it as necessary to repair the public finances. He never produced a convincing answer to the criticism that employers would pass part of the bill to workers through weaker wages, fewer hours or reduced recruitment.

Murray also became the first minister to chair HMRC’s board, making him more directly accountable for its performance. Under the programme he led, average telephone waiting times fell from more than 23 minutes in 2023/24 to 12 minutes and 35 seconds in 2025/26. Compliance work brought in a record £48 billion.

The promised transformation was incomplete. HMRC complaints had reached a five-year high, while the estimated tax gap rose to 6.4 per cent, or £59.2 billion, for 2024/25. Murray made the phones less dreadful and compliance activity more productive. He did not create the quick, simple tax authority his speeches described.

Record as Health Secretary

Murray held the health brief for barely two months, but one result stands out. After further industrial action, resident doctors accepted a settlement that ended 21 strike days since July 2025. The agreement reformed the pay structure, reimbursed mandatory examination and portfolio fees and created up to 4,500 additional training places.

He also took the NHS Modernisation Bill through its Commons second reading. The Bill proposed a single patient record and the abolition of NHS England, but it also removed Healthwatch England and absorbed local patient bodies into institutions they were supposed to scrutinise. Murray defended this as bringing patient feedback closer to decision-makers. Critics said it would allow the NHS and ministers to mark their own homework. The legislation had not completed its passage before he left the department.

Political character and capability

Murray is good at the unglamorous work of government. He can negotiate, master a brief and carry difficult legislation without turning himself into the story. The affordable-housing threshold, improved HMRC response times and resident-doctor settlement are all substantial entries on his record.

His limitations are equally apparent. He has usually implemented a programme belonging to Khan, Reeves, Starmer or Streeting. His housing targets relied heavily on starts rather than completed homes, his main tax measure imposed serious costs on employers, and his short period at Health produced little policy that was recognisably his own.

Murray’s record shows a capable minister and effective political operator. It does not yet show an independent leader.