Kwasi Kwarteng is made chancellor and Therese Coffey deputy PM, as Liz Truss unveils her top team.
Image source, Getty ImagesLiz Truss has rewarded key allies with top jobs in a major reshuffle hours after taking over from Boris Johnson as prime minister.
Kwasi Kwarteng is in as chancellor, James Cleverly is foreign secretary and Suella Braverman takes over from Priti Patel as home secretary.
One of Ms Truss’s closest friends, Therese Coffey, is the new health secretary and deputy prime minister.
Big names losing their place in the cabinet include Dominic Raab.
Former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and former Health Secretary Steve Barclay – who like Mr Raab supported Ms Truss’s defeated rival Rishi Sunak in the Tory leadership contest – are also returning to the backbenches.
Nadine Dorries, who backed Ms Truss, said she had been asked by the new PM to stay on as culture secretary but had decided to quit frontline politics.
Michelle Donelan takes over Ms Dorries’ old job at the culture department.
Wendy Morton is put in charge of parliamentary discipline, becoming the first female Conservative chief whip.
Former International Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt has been made Leader of the House of Commons, the job that ensures the government’s legislation passes through Parliament.
She and Ms Truss were engaged in a bitter battle to make it to the final two of the Tory leadership contest, however Ms Mordaunt later threw her support behind her one-time rival.
Image source, Reuters
Another leadership contender, Kemi Badenoch, becomes international trade secretary, Chloe Smith takes on the work and pensions department, while Kit Malthouse is the new education secretary.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, an early supporter of Ms Truss, has been appointed business, energy and industrial strategy secretary, Simon Clarke moves to the levelling up department and Anne-Marie Trevelyan takes on the transport brief.
Ranil Jayawardena replaces George Eustice as environment secretary, Brandon Lewis gets the justice secretary role and Nadhim Zahawi leaves his job as chancellor to become minister for intergovernmental relations and equalities.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace is one of the few senior minister to retain his job, where he’s earned plaudits in his response to the conflict in Ukraine.
Ms Truss’s new cabinet will meet for the first time on Wednesday morning.
Other appointments include:
- Chris Heaton-Harris as Northern Ireland secretary, Alister Jack as Scottish secretary and Robert Buckland as Welsh secretary
- Jake Berry as Tory chairman and minister without portfolio
- Michael Ellis as attorney general
- Lord True as leader of the House of Lords
- Alok Sharma remains as COP president
Her new chancellor Mr Kwarteng is expected to spend his first day in the job meeting chief executives of various banks.
In a tweet, he said getting the job was “the honour of a lifetime” and that he would be spending his Tuesday evening “finalising our package of urgent support to help with energy bills”.
The government is expected to announce on Thursday what support it will put in place amid soaring prices.
No Sunak supporters have been handed prominent positions so far, although one, Michael Ellis, is tipped to be Attorney General.
So how are some of them reacting? One senior MP who supported Rishi Sunak tells me: “I genuinely want her [Ms Truss] to do well for the good of the country and party. Quite a few of us in that position but there’s also no shortage of quiet grumbling around.”
Many Tory MPs expect her to appoint some of Mr Sunak’s supporters into more junior ministerial positions – some of which may come on Wednesday.
The Sunak-supporting MP adds: “She looks determined to create her own government and I don’t blame her. She has to create the sense of a new chapter starting. But party management will be a headache inevitably in the months ahead. Big job for the whips and new No 10 operation.”
Ms Truss was earlier appointed the 56th prime minister of the UK by the Queen, in a ceremony at Balmoral.
She returned to a rain-lashed Downing Street, where in a short speech she vowed to grow the economy through tax cuts and reform; take action to deal with energy bills and put the health service on “a firm footing”.
Mr Sunak, the former chancellor whose resignation helped trigger the downfall of Boris Johnson, had already made it clear he did not expect to be offered a new job.
But his supporters had urged Ms Truss to appoint an “inclusive” cabinet and not simply surround herself with loyalists.
On Wednesday, she will face her first parliamentary test in her new job when she faces Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions.
