A summary of today's developments
Downing Street has confirmed the first swathe of junior ministers appointed in the reshuffle. Jason Stockwood has been appointed investment minister jointly in the Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury, while Dan Jarvis joins the Cabinet Office as a minister, while remaining security minister in the Home Office.
Lady Jacqui Smith has taken up the role of skills minister in the Department for Work and Pensions. She will remain as both the skills and women and equalities minister in the Department for Education, while Lord Patrick Vallance is a minister in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
Dame Angela Eagle will join the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Dame Diana Johnson has moved to the Department for Work and Pensions.
Lady Poppy Gustafsson, Jim McMahon and Daniel Zeichner have left the government.
Justin Madders was the first junior minister to be sacked in Saturday’s further reshuffle. The minister for employment rights, who worked under former business secretary, now chief whip, Jonathan Reynolds at the Department for Business and Trade, said he had been dismissed.
Ellie Reeves is solicitor general, while Anna Turley will succeed Reeves as Labour Party chair who will attend cabinet.
Lucy Rigby has been moved from solicitor general to economic secretary to the Treasury, while Luke Pollard has received a promotion from under-secretary of state to minister of state.
Nigel Farage said he misspoke when he said he bought a house in Clacton before the last election. The Reform leader said last year he had bought a home in his Clacton constituency, but it was later reported that his partner had actually made the purchase.He told Sky News: “I should have said ‘we’. All right? My partner bought it, so what?” He said it was “her money” and “her asset”. “I own none of it. But I just happen to spend some time there.”
Labour’s most powerful union backer has warned that Keir Starmer is in danger of bolstering support for Nigel Farage, arguing that the government has failed to support oil and gas workers and watered down plans to boost employment rights. Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said voters could be left feeling “duped” by Labour after the government scaled back planned changes to ban zero-hours contracts and exploitative “fire-and-rehire” practices.
Newly appointed business secretary Peter Kyle has confirmed to business chiefs that he will meet the Trump administration in Washington next week ahead of travelling to China for trade talks. On a video call of around 100 CEOs, entrepreneurs and trade unions, he highlighted the importance of technology to boost the economy and said the UK must “double down” on growth as he sought to set the tone for his future in the role.
The UK cannot take its “special relationship” with the US for granted, Britain’s ambassador to Washington has warned.
In a wide-ranging speech, Lord Peter Mandelson, a key architect of New Labour, said the country cannot afford to show any “complacency” over Donald Trump’s “instinctive warmth”.
The former minister, who was a staunch Remainer during the EU referendum, also painted Brexit as a liberating force that has allowed Britain to pursue closer ties with America.
Speaking at the Ditchley Foundation, a charity focused on transatlantic relations, he said: “Like it or not, our US partnership has become indispensable to the functioning of our nation.
“Beyond President Trump’s instinctive warmth towards Britain – and it’s real – we cannot simply take it for granted that the breadth of this, and of future US administrations, will see the value of the special relationship in the way that we do.
“There can be no complacency on our part.
“It is vital that we demonstrate to the next tier of US political leadership and to the next Republican and Democrat generations, exactly how UK partnerships in economics, technology and security deliver tangible value for Americans and Brits alike.”
