New prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has set about forming his new government with a series of cabinet appointments over the weekend.
There have so far been few surprises, with senior ministers largely being appointed to the roles they had as part of the Labour shadow bench before the general election.
This includes Rachel Reeves becoming chancellor, Jonathan Reynolds becoming business and trade secretary, and David Lammy becoming foreign secretary.
You can read our profile of Reynolds here and we will be continuing to update this story as further junior ministerial appointments are made.
Headline appointments
The new cabinet doesn’t completely resemble the shadow leadership, however, as not all of Labour’s senior MPs from the last parliament secured re-election – notably including Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire.
Starmer has also bought representatives from outside of the House of Commons into his administration, including Sir Patrick Vallance as science minister and James Timpson, the CEO of key cutting and shoe repair services firm Timpson Group, as prisons minister.
The cabinet includes both ministers that are new to government and some familiar faces from Gordon Brown’s previous Labour administration in 2010, including Yvette Cooper as home secretary, Peter Kyle in science, innovation and technology, and former Labour leader Ed Miliband in energy, security and net zero.
Notably for trade
While Reynolds’ brief is of most relevance to the international trade sector, there were a number of other key appointments for the industry, including:
- Douglas Alexander – minister in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT)
- Sarah Jones – DBT minister
- Steve Reed – the new head of Defra
- Louise Haigh – transport secretary
- Hilary Benn – Northern Ireland secretary
- John Healey – defence secretary
Reynolds also takes on the role of President of the Board of Trade.
Scrutiny begins
The cabinet is being given little time to settle in, with Reynolds representing the new government across Sunday’s media round.
This morning, Darren Jones, the new chief secretary to the Treasury, was pressed by Amol Rajan on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on how the government will go about strengthening trade ties with the EU.
Jones reiterated that the UK will “not [be] rejoining the economic institutions of the EU” including the single market and customs union.
“That is what we felt that people wanted in this election,” he said, adding that the UK is also not entertaining revisiting freedom of movement.
“But we do think there's room to improve the relationship in a pragmatic and sensible way.”
