As he continues to assemble his new cabinet, prime minister Rishi Sunak has moved two allies of his predecessor, Liz Truss, to more junior roles.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan has been removed from her position as transport secretary and will now become a Foreign Office minister.
Chris Philp has also been moved down from his role as paymaster general to serve as a minister within the Home Office.
Elsewhere, Andrew Griffith moves down to the role of economic secretary after having held the post of financial secretary the Treasury. He makes way for former justice minister Victoria Atkins, who tendered her resignation from the Ministry of Justice as part of the revolt against Boris Johnson in the waning days of his premiership.
Sunak has also installed Nick Gibb and Robert Halfon as education ministers, while Jesse Norman and Alex Chalk take-up transport minister and defence minister roles respectively.
Lucy Frazer has moved into the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities where she takes on a ministerial role; Helen Whately has been named a minister in the Department for Health & Social Care; and George Freeman is now a minister in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
After being moved out of his role within the Ministry of Defence as veterans’ affairs minister to make way for Johnny Mercer, James Heappey has been reappointed to the same department as minister for the Armed Forces and veterans.
Heappey had threatened to resign under Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss if the government did not uphold commitments to spend three per cent of GDP on defence by 2030. The new PM is yet to commit to such a level of expenditure in this area.
Meanwhile, Greg Hands and Steve Baker retain their roles as trade minister and Northern Ireland minister, respectively.
The latest move follows on from the beginning of Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.
While Sunak has rewarded some of his close allies with promotions, Downing Street has said that he has sought to balance that with “unity, experience and continuity” in keeping some of those who worked with his predecessor in government positions.
The PM has faced scrutiny over his decision to reinstate Suella Braverman as home secretary, after she resigned under Truss for breaching ministerial code around security.
Sunak and some of his fellow ministers have defended the move, saying that Braverman warrants a second chance after having accepted her error.
Photo by HM Treasury and Rishi Sunak on Wikimedia Commons
