Katsunobu Kato (加藤 勝信, Katō Katsunobu, born November 22, 1955) is a Japanese politician who previously serves as the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare three times from 2017 to 2018, from 2019 to 2020, and from 2022 to 2023. He also served as Chief Cabinet Secretary from 2020 to 2021. Belonging to the Liberal Democratic Party, he has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2003.

Born in Tokyo and a graduate of the University of Tokyo, Kato had a bureaucratic career in the Ministry of Finance before going into politics.

Kato was born as Katsunobu Murosaki on November 22, 1955, in Tokyo, Japan. His father was an executive at Hino Motors. The family came from Shimane Prefecture and his grandfather was a businessman and prefectural assemblyman. He studied economics at the University of Tokyo and joined the Ministry of Finance after graduating in 1979. He held various posts until being assigned as secretary to the Minister of Agriculture Mutsuki Kato in April 1994.^[1]

Katsunobu eventually married the daughter of Mutsuki Kato. As the family had only daughters, Katsunobu was adopted by his father-in-law to carry on the family name. He retired from the Ministry of Finance in 1995 and became his father-in-law's personal secretary.^[2][3]

Kato would pursue his political career in Okayama Prefecture, where his adoptive family was based. After unsuccessful runs in 1998 and 2000, Kato was elected to the House of Representatives for the first time in the 2003 general election. He had initially run as an independent as his father-in-law had left the LDP. However, fellow Okayama politician and former Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto recruited him for the party and when elected, Kato joined the Heisei Kenkyukai led by Hashimoto. This was significant as Hashimoto and Mutsuki Kato had long been rivals in the political world of Okayama.^[4]

Kato became a confidant of Shinzo Abe. This was partially due to a family relationship. Mutsuki Kato had been a close ally of Shintaro Abe and his wife had remained a close friend of Shinzo's mother Yoko.^[2][3] Kato also had close ties to Mikio Aoki, who knew Kato's grandfather from his days in the Shimane Prefectural Assembly.

In August 2007, Kato became parliamentary vice minister to the Cabinet Office in the Abe Cabinet. He was retained until the end of the Fukuda Cabinet.^[1]

When Abe was re-elected as president of the LDP in September 2012, he appointed Kato as his special assistant. In December of the same year the LDP returned to government and Kato was appointed Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary. In October 2015 he joined the cabinet for the first time as minister of state with a portfolio including countermeasures against the declining birthrate and women's empowerment.^[5][6]

When Abe reshuffled his cabinet in August 2017, Kato became as Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare until October 2018, when he was appointed Chairman of the General Council, one of four key posts in the LDP, but he was reappointed as Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare in September 2019.^[1][2]

After Abe resigned as Prime Minister in September 2020 due to his health reasons, Kato was appointed Chief Cabinet Secretary under his successor Yoshihide Suga. Following the end of the Suga Cabinet in October 2021, Kato became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission and subcommittee chairman of the Tax Research Commission within the LDP.^[7]

In August 2022 following the assassination of Shinzo Abe one month previous, Fumio Kishida reshuffled the cabinet and was Kato once again appointed Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare.^[1] He left cabinet in the next reshuffle in September 2023, after which Kato once again became chairman of the Social Security Research Commission, as well as secretary general of the LDP Headquarters for Realising Constitutional Revision.^[8]

Katō is affiliated with the conservative organization Nippon Kaigi.^[9]

•  Netherlands: Grand Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau (29 October 2014)^[10]