Tadamasa Kodaira replaced him as Chairman of the National Public Safety Commission and Minister of State for Consumer Affairs and Food Safety, and Keishu Tanaka took over as Minister for the Abduction Issue.

[3] His oldest son Hajime Matsubara is a member of the Ota city assembly.

[7] On Monday 27 August 2012 Matsubara told a House of Councillors budget committee meeting that he may propose to other ministers a review of the 1993 statement by then Chief Cabinet Secretary Yōhei Kōno admitting the Imperial Japanese Army's role in establishing and running "comfort stations" for troops with forcibly recruited comfort women, because "no direct descriptions of forcible recruitment have been found in military and other Japanese official records obtained by the government.

"[8] On 15 August 2012 Matsubara, along with Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Yuichiro Hata became the first cabinet ministers of the DPJ to openly visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on 15 August since the party came to power in 2009.

Matsubara made his visit to commemorate the 67th anniversary of the end of World War II despite requests from South Korea to refrain from doing so,[9] and despite Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda requesting his cabinet not to do so.