A new direction? – A look at who Liz Truss has appointed to her Cabinet
With a new prime minister generally brings a new Cabinet and Liz Truss has decided on an extensive reshuffle as her government attempts to move away from the past leadership of Boris Johnson.
Truss has appointed former BEIS secretary Kwasi Kwarteng as the new Chancellor – Kwarteng delivered his mini-budget last week alongside the publication of ‘The Growth Plan 2022’. Read NHC’s on-the-day update summarising the details of the new Chancellor’s measures to tackle inflation, the cost of living and to stimulate growth.
Former Attorney General Suella Braverman has been appointed Home Secretary and Liz Truss has chosen James Cleverley to replace her as Foreign Secretary. Thérèse Coffey will undertake a new Cabinet role as Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, as well as being appointed Deputy Prime Minister.
Simon Clarke, MP for Middlesborough South & East Cleveland, and former Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is the new Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The Tees Valley MP wrote in The Express last week advocating for the new ‘Investment Zones’ announced in the Growth Plan – saying, “these new low tax, low regulation zones will not only deliver on the promises of Brexit, but on the defining mission of this Government: to grow our economy and level up the country”. Clarke is also a former Vice Chair of the APPG for Housing in the North of which the NHC acts as Secretariat.
Clarke has appointed Lee Rowley as housing minister – the MP for North Derbyshire replaces Marcus Jones who was in the role for 62 days and becomes the third housing minister in a year. Clarke has also appointed Dehenna Davison, MP for Bishop Auckland, as a junior minister for levelling up. Davison will be tasked with progressing the levelling up agenda – often seen as Boris Johnson’s flagship policy, and will be responsible for the UK Shared Prosperity Fund as well as the Levelling Up Fund. MP for Pendle Andrew Stephenson has also been appointed as a junior minister and Paul Scully MP has been re-appointed as a Minister of State (Minister for London).
Jacob Rees-Mogg is the new Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Rees-Mogg will be tasked with addressing the energy price crisis and alleviating the UK’s reliance on imports of foreign energy. Earlier in September, Liz Truss announced details of the ‘Energy Price Guarantee’ – the package of support to help with the rising cost of energy bills. From 1st October, a new Energy Price Guarantee will replace the price cap and will mean a typical UK household will now pay an average of £2,500 a year on their energy bill for the next two years.
Graham Stuart, MP for Beverley and Holderness, has been appointed Minister of State for Climate. Jackie Doyle-Price and Nusrat Ghani have both been newly appointed as Ministers of State at BEIS and Lord Callanan has been reappointed as a junior minister.
Ben Wallace is one of the few MP’s to retain their role in Cabinet, continuing as Defence Secretary and leading the response to the war in Ukraine. Nadhim Zahawi, who replaced Rishi Sunak as Chancellor of the Exchequer for two months, will now be responsible for running the Cabinet Office as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Annie-Marie Trevelyan has been appointed Transport Secretary and Kit Malthouse will become Education Secretary.
Despite the far-reaching changes to the government under its new leadership, the NHC will continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders to ensure that the North is represented and we can continue to influence housing policy decisions in Westminster.
See the full list of ministerial appointments across government here.
If you wish to follow up on any of this with the NHC you can do so by contacting Josef Bews at josef.bews@northern-consortium.org.uk.
