David Lucas, Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda, dies

The appointment of a new Secretary of State in Spain combines an essentially political decision with a very structured legal-formal process. Politically, the initiative corresponds to the President of the Government and the competent minister, who propose the chosen person. Legally, the appointment is formalized by royal decree, signed by the King and countersigned by the President of the Government, and published in the BOE. From the perspective of the personal statute, the Secretary of State is a senior official subject to the requirements of suitability, honorability, and incompatibility regime provided for in specific legislation.

1. Basic regulatory framework

Secretaries of State are mainly regulated in:

• Law 50/1997, of the Government, which defines Secretaries of State as senior bodies, their position in the government structure, and their relationship with the President and ministers (text of Law 50/1997).
• Law 40/2015, on the Legal Regime of the Public Sector, which organizes the senior and managerial bodies of the General State Administration and refers, for the appointment of ministers and Secretaries of State, to the Government Law and the Law on senior officials (Law 40/2015).
• Law 3/2015, regulating the exercise of senior office, which establishes who is considered a senior official (expressly including Secretaries of State), the conditions of suitability, honorability, conflicts of interest, asset declarations, etc. (Law 3/2015).

2. Causes of the vacancy

The vacancy of a Secretary of State may generally occur due to:

• Dismissal decided by the Government (for political or organizational reasons).
• Resignation of the incumbent.
• Incompatibility, loss of honorability, or sanction requiring dismissal, according to Law 3/2015.
• Ministerial restructuring (creation, modification, or suppression of Secretariats of State), which the President of the Government may agree by royal decree according to Law 50/1997.

In any case, the vacancy is a political decision or fact that triggers the replacement procedure.

3. Political phase of appointment

The essentially political steps are:

• Internal proposal: the minister of the affected department proposes a candidate to the President of the Government. There is no formal procedure in the law; it is a discretionary and political process.
• Decision of the President of the Government: according to Law 50/1997, the President directs the Government's action and determines the structure of Secretariats of State, thus assuming the final decision on whom to propose for the position.
• Political suitability check: Law 3/2015 requires that the appointment of senior officials be made among suitable persons (honorability, training, and experience). “Suitability” is assessed both by the proposer and the appointer, although this check has an evident political component.

4. Legal-formal processing of the appointment

Once the name is decided, the much more regulated legal-formal part is activated:

• Drafting of the royal decree of appointment: the draft royal decree appointing the new Secretary of State is prepared. Law 50/1997 and Law 40/2015 frame these acts within regulatory authority and the Administration's structure.
• Deliberation and agreement in the Council of Ministers: the appointment is approved as an agreement of the Council of Ministers in an ordinary session, at the proposal of the President and the competent minister. This step is formal, although it responds to the prior political decision.
• Signature by the King and countersignature: the royal decree is signed by the King and countersigned by the President of the Government, according to the Constitution and the Government Law. Without this countersignature, the act would be invalid.
• Publication in the BOE: the royal decree is inserted in the "Official State Gazette". Publication is the element that grants full effectiveness and legal publicity to the appointment.

5. Personal statute and taking office

After publication, several procedures linked to the senior official statute are completed:

• Taking office: an internal act (usually at the ministry or Moncloa itself) by which the new Secretary of State formally assumes the position. Legally, effectiveness derives from the royal decree, but taking office marks the effective start in the post.
• Responsible declaration of suitability: Law 3/2015 requires the senior official to sign a responsible declaration affirming compliance with honorability requirements, absence of incompatibility causes, and truthfulness of data, which is sent to the Office of Conflicts of Interest.
• Declarations of activities and assets: also according to Law 3/2015, they must submit declarations of economic activities and assets and rights, which serve as a reference for controlling conflicts of interest and their patrimonial situation before and after dismissal.

6. Summary distinction: political vs. legal‑formal

• Political: decision to dismiss the previous holder; proposal of the new candidate; political assessment of their profile; decision of the President of the Government to promote the appointment.
• Legal-formal: approval of the appointment in the Council of Ministers; issuance of the royal decree by the King with countersignature of the President; publication in the BOE; taking office; submission of declarations and compliance with the senior official regime of Law 3/2015.

The Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda is the senior body of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda responsible for directing, under the authority of the head of the ministry, the state policy on housing, urban agenda, building quality, and land. According to Royal Decree 829/2023, this ministry is responsible for proposing and executing that policy, and the Secretariat of State is its specific senior body in this area. The specific functions of the Secretary of State are developed in the royal decree of the basic organic structure of the ministry itself, but that detail does not appear in the consulted sources, so only a functional and systematic synthesis can be made, not a literal transcription of articles. In practice, it concentrates strategic direction, internal coordination, and relations with autonomous communities, local entities, and the EU regarding housing and urban agenda.

General legal framework and position in the Administration

In the structure of the General State Administration, the figure of Secretary of State is generally regulated by the Government Law and by royal decrees that set the basic organic structure of ministerial departments. In the case of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda:

• Royal Decree 829/2023: restructures ministerial departments and identifies the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda as responsible for the Government's policy on housing, urban agenda, building quality, and land, providing “as a senior body, the Secretariat of State for Housing and Urban Agenda” (article related to this ministry, in the Royal Decree 829/2023 itself).
• Royal decrees of basic organic structure: specify, ministry by ministry, the units dependent on each Secretariat of State and the detailed distribution of powers. In the analyzed sources, the text that develops organically the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda after its creation does not appear, so there is no article-by-article list of the Secretary of State's functions.

Material scope: housing and urban agenda

Based on what Royal Decree 829/2023 establishes, the Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda acts on four major material blocks:

• Housing policy: design and execution of state housing programs, rental aid, state housing plans, or specific lines such as those related to the Youth Rental Voucher (regulated by Royal Decree 42/2022 and modified by Royal Decree 903/2022).
• Urban Agenda: promotion of state strategies for sustainable urban planning and coordination with territorial planning and urbanism policies of autonomous communities and local entities.
• Building quality: state standards and policies affecting technical standards, rehabilitation, energy efficiency, and safety of the building stock.
• Land: basic state conditions on land regime and its use for housing purposes, in coordination with regional territorial planning and urbanism regulations.

Typical functions of the Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda

Based on that material scope and according to the general scheme of Secretaries of State, the typical functions attributed by administrative organization regulations (although the specific articles for this ministry are not available) are, in summary, the following:

• Political and strategic direction: formulate the strategic lines of state housing and urban agenda policy; propose to the minister draft regulations (laws, royal decrees, and ministerial orders) in these areas, including participation in the development of Law 12/2023, of May 24, on the right to housing, accessible in the BOE.
• Internal planning and coordination: direct and coordinate the general directorates and units dependent on the Secretariat of State (for example, the General Directorate of Housing and Land, which appears in resolutions such as the review of interest rates on housing plan loans: resolution of May 5, 2025 or resolution of April 10, 2024).
• Program and fund management: promotion, monitoring, and evaluation of aid programs for residential rehabilitation and social housing regulated in norms such as Royal Decree 853/2021, or state housing plans and their modifications (Royal Decree 903/2022).
• Territorial and international relations: representation of the ministry in cooperation bodies with autonomous communities and local entities on housing and urban agenda, as well as participation in international forums on human settlements or sustainable cities (in line with previous administrative agreements in housing and human settlements, such as those published in the BOE).
• Promotion of digitalization and internal management: although these are horizontal competences of the entire ministry, the Secretary of State is affected by the creation of bodies such as the Ministerial Commission on Digital Administration of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, regulated by Order VAU/1172/2025, and by delegation orders such as Order VAU/717/2024.
• Accountability: preparation of information that the ministry provides to the Cortes Generales on the execution of housing and urban agenda policy (appearances, responses to parliamentary questions, housing plan reports, etc.).

Limits and normative specification

The precise delimitation — which specific competence the Secretary of State exercises directly, which are delegated to the undersecretariat or general directorates, or which acts are signed by delegation of the minister — is always set in the royal decree of the basic organic structure of the corresponding ministry and in internal delegation orders. In the case of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda, the available sources show the general framework (via Royal Decree 829/2023) and various sectoral orders, but not the specific text of its basic organic structure, so there is no exhaustive and literal catalog of the functions of the Secretary of State for Housing and Urban Agenda. The above description therefore responds to the general legal framework and the material distribution of competences that can be normatively verified.

In the last general elections held on July 23, 2023, the PSOE obtained in the Madrid constituency 10 seats in the Congress, with 1,004,599 votes, which represented approximately 27.84% of the votes cast in the province. These data place the PSOE as the second force in Madrid, behind the PP, which won with 16 seats and just over 40% of the vote. The final distribution was fixed after the counting of the external vote (CERA), which allowed the PP to take the last seat in dispute in this constituency from the PSOE.

PSOE results in Madrid on 23J 2023

According to the provincial scrutiny data of 23J, the PSOE reached in Madrid:

• Votes: 1,004,599 ballots.
• Vote percentage: 27.84% of the total cast in the constituency.
• Deputies: 10 seats in the Congress of Deputies.

These figures can be verified in the official results broken down by constituencies, such as those offered by RTVE in its 2023 electoral special (RTVE Madrid 2023 results) or in national press interactives like El País – Madrid results. The Madrid City Council also published a statistical analysis of the 23J day in the capital, with details of participation and vote by district (municipal statistics of 23J).

Context in the Madrid constituency

Madrid is a large constituency, with a very high number of seats at stake and, therefore, a decisive weight in the overall distribution of deputies. In 2023, the PP was the first force in the province with 16 seats and 40.55% of the vote (around 1.46 million ballots), while the PSOE consolidated as the second force with the 10 seats and 27.84% already mentioned. This picture can be seen in compilations such as [link] or in comparative summaries from media like [link].

The logic of the constituency, and how it converts votes into seats, is explained didactically by the newspaper Demócrata in an article about the value of the provincial vote: it details that the distribution does not depend only on the national percentage, but on the territorial distribution and the size of each constituency (what is an electoral constituency). Madrid, by distributing many seats, tends to more proportionally reflect the balance of forces, but the last deputies can be decided by very narrow margins.

Impact of the external vote (CERA) in Madrid

A key element to understand the final result of the PSOE in Madrid in 2023 is the effect of the external vote. According to Demócrata's report on the impact of the CERA vote, in the July 2023 general elections the PP managed to take a seat from the PSOE in the Madrid constituency after counting the votes of residents abroad. The article highlights that of the nearly 2.3 million Spaniards registered in the Census of Absent Residents, just over 203,000 voted, and the PP was the most supported force in that vote with 66,422 ballots compared to 50,597 for the PSOE (Demócrata analysis on external vote).

In practice, this means that the level of support for the PSOE in Madrid was very close to translating into an eleventh deputy, but the final scrutiny adjustment left its representation at the 10 seats currently held. Hence the concern expressed by various parties – including the PP in that Demócrata text – about how future increases in the external census could alter the distribution of seats in large provinces like Madrid.

Comparison with previous results

In comparative terms, the 23J consolidated a pattern already seen in 2019: in the April 2019 elections the PSOE also obtained 10 seats in Madrid, with around 26.9–27.3% of the vote (around 957,000 ballots), according to databases such as those of El Confidencial – Madrid 2019 and El País – Madrid 28A. The big difference is that then the PSOE was the winning force in the constituency, while in 2023 the leadership clearly passed to the PP.

That continuity in seats – 10 in 2019 and 10 in 2023 – despite changes in the political climate, indicates a certain stability of the socialist electoral base in the province of Madrid in general elections, although surrounded by much more intense competition for the first position and for the last seats at stake.

Other related links

For those who want to explore in detail the national data or the historical evolution of the socialist vote, compilations such as [link] and the general results aggregator of 20minutos – Madrid 2019 are useful, as well as the general summaries of 2023 on RTVE ([link]) and other media ([link], [link]).