Sir Keir Starmer’s new cabinet following the resignation of his Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, must deliver on three fronts if Labour is to win the next general election – economic growth, public services and illegal immigration. The cabinet reshuffle does not seem to make much difference in relation to two of these.
Rachel Reeves remains as Chancellor with ultimate responsibility under Starmer for the economy, and the secretaries of state for three principal public services remain in the posts they held before Rayner resigned – Wes Streeting at Health, Bridget Phillipson at Education and Heidi Alexander at Transport.
There are however important changes in two roles outside the Treasury, at Cabinet level but just below the Chancellor. Pat McFadden, a Glaswegian and former adviser to Tony Blair, takes over from Liz Kendall at the Department for Work and Pensions with the additional responsibility for skills, transferred from the Department for Education. It will be his responsibility to get as many as possible of the UK’s 9mn economically inactive people back to work.
Darren Jones, who takes on McFadden’s former position as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in addition to his existing, also very recent, role as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister and is a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, will run the Cabinet Office, co-ordinate the government’s policies and deliver its agenda.
Immigration and the Home Office
Only at the Home Office has there been a significant move at the very highest level, with Yvette Cooper making way for Shabana Mahmood.
Cooper’s talk of controlling illegal immigration by smashing the gangs and stopping the boats has failed to deliver so far and is fuelling the rise of Reform UK. Mahmood, said by the BBC to have a reputation among Labour MPs as a hardliner on immigration, will be expected to do better while pursuing polices that are tough but fair and humane. It is a heavy burden on her shoulders but maybe one she will relish as an opportunity.
Cooper moves to the Foreign Office. This is one of the great offices of state and cannot be seen as a demotion. But paradoxically at a time of so much danger in the world it has become arguably less important as the Prime Minister has taken more personal responsibility, and has found more success on the foreign stage than he has enjoyed at home, improving relations with Europe in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine and building a working relationship with President Trump in support of British trade.
Starmer’s overseas activism may leave Cooper playing second fiddle and leave her looking rather lame, as her predecessor David Lammy did. Lammy moves to Mahmood’s old position in the Justice Department and so no longer heads one of the great departments of state. His loss is tempered by making him Deputy Prime Minister, as Rayner was, but that can easily become a non-job. No post-war Labour Deputy Prime Minister has gone on to occupy 10 Downing Street, unless one counts Clement Attlee in 1945, who had been Churchill’s wartime No. 2.
Local government and North East local interest
The identity of the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government is always of interest to the North East as to every other part of England. Rayner’s replacement in that role is Steve Reed, MP for Streatham and Croydon North and a former leader of Lambeth Council.
Closer to home, Jonathan Reynolds, born in Sunderland and still a supporter of the city’s football team, though a Manchester MP, moves from the Department of Business and Trade to take over as Chief Whip from Sir Alan Campbell, MP for Tynemouth, who is turn is appointed Leader of the House of Commons. Baroness (Jenny) Chapman, former MP for Darlington, is International Development Minister in the Foreign Office with responsibilities for Latin America and the Caribbean. She attends Cabinet.
