The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is a senior minister in the in the Government of the United Kingdom and the head of the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). As a Cabinet-level position, the office holder is responsible for housing, planning, and local government policy in England.

The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.

The Department of Communities and Local Government was created in 2006 by then British prime minister Tony Blair to replace John Prescott's Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, which had taken on the local government and regions portfolios from the defunct Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions in 2002.

The secretary of state took over the responsibilities of the minister of state for communities and local government. This post, within the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, was created in 2005, on the transfer of several functions from the deputy prime minister himself.^{[citation needed]}

Then prime minister Boris Johnson renamed the position Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and gave the secretary and the department responsibility for carrying out the promise in the 2019 Conservative Party manifesto of "levelling up". Labour prime minister Keir Starmer renamed the department as the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government on 8 July 2024, retiring the levelling up monicker.

The secretary of state's responsibilities include: