18.59 The reshuffle is over and the dust is settling in Westminster. Catch up on all today’s events in our Evening Blend email, which has just gone out. if you don’t yet subscribe to this free daily update of all the key political events, you can read it in full here and subscribe here. Thanks for following the biggest reshuffle of this Parliament. This live blog is now closing.
18.10 David Cameron has announced the appointment of Tobias Ellwood as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign Office and, with an invitation to look at the list of all today’s ministerial announcements on the GOV.UK website, the end of today’s appointments.
Tobias Ellwood has been appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State @foreignoffice #reshuffle
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
See all today’s ministerial announcements on our website: http://t.co/l81yg0ZuFZ #reshuffle
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
17.51 Michael Gove has just been on BBC News and made a very good fist of sounding pleased—nay, ecstatic—about his new role as Chief Whip. Huw Edwards put to Gove the views of a ‘prominent conservative commentator’ that his job change is ‘an appalling decision which suggests that the Prime Minister is more worried about party management than children’s education.’ (See Fraser at 10:00). Gove said that ‘couldn’t be more wrong’.
17.01 Jo Johnson has been promoted to Minister of State at the Cabinet Office (he remains head of the Downing Street Policy Unit) and Sam Gymiah, a whip, has been appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education.
Jo Johnson has been promoted to Minister of State @CabinetOfficeUK and remains as head of the Downing Street Policy Unit. #reshuffle
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
Sam Gymiah has been appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State @educationgovuk #reshuffle
— UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
16.43 James Forsyth has blogged about Michael Gove’s departure from the Department for Education. Has the education reform agenda left with him? Here’s an excerpt:
If the reform agenda is continuing, why not just make Liz Truss Education Secretary? She’s worked with Gove for the past few years as one of his junior ministers and knows the brief well. The decision to give it to a clean skin in Nicky Morgan, previously an effective Treasury Ministers, suggests at the very least a desire to move on from past battles. As for Gove’s new role, it is clear he isn’t being silenced. He is one of the four musketeers who’ll be out and about defending the government and promoting the Tory cause in the broadcast studios between now and the election.
Read James’s analysis here. 16.13 Therese Coffey, Ben Wallace, Damian Hinds and Mel Stride have been appointed as Assistant Government Whips. 16.06 Robert Hutton and Thomas Perry report that Tina Stowell, the new Leader of the House of Lords, will be paid less than her predecessor, Lord Hall. Stowell will draw a Lords Minister of State’s salary of £78,891, while Hall, who was a full member of Cabinet, drew a salary of £101,038 a year. 15.36 Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General, says that even though there are ‘quite a few things wrong with the ECHR’, ‘there would be consequences’ if Britain decided to pull out – with implications for our standing on the world stage.
15.35 Here's something we missed earlier – Sky News political editor Adam Boulton swallowed a fly live on air during his coverage of the reshuffle:
15.27 The BBC's Norman Smith says the reshuffle is over:
Calling all Tory MPs. It's over. So if you haven't had that phone call yet..... #reshuffle #nexttime
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) July 15, 2014
15.20 Philip Hammond has given his first interview as Foreign Secretary. He says that other EU members understand Britain’s need for reform and that he thinks significant renegotiation will be possible. He also praised his predecessor saying that under William Hague Britain has again become a ‘powerhouse for international diplomacy’:
15.01 James on what the Gove move means:
Downing Street is keen to stress that the education reform agenda doesn't leave the DfE with Gove. The changes to the junior ministerial line-up at the department bolsters this argument, Nick Gibb—no friend of the teaching unions—returns as Minister of State for schools and Nick Boles, a close ally of Gove and a man brave enough to take on vested interests wherever he finds them, takes over the Skills Brief.
But, if the reform agenda is continuing, why not just make Liz Truss Education Secretary? She's worked with Gove for the past few years as one of his junior ministers and knows the brief well. The decision to give it to a clean skin in Nicky Morgan, previously an effective Treasury Ministers, suggests at the very least a desire to move on from past battles.
As for Gove's new role, it is clear he isn't being silenced. He is one of the four musketeers who'll be out and about defending the government and promoting the Tory cause in the broadcast studios between now and the election. He'll also be an influential figure in Number 10, attending the 8.30am and 4pm meetings as well as sitting on all the key Cabinet committees.
But Gove is no longer running a department and has been separated from his great moral crusade of education reform. One senior Cameroon counters that what's most important now is winning the next election and bringing Gove into the centre makes that more likely. If the Tories do win in 2015, I'm told Gove will return to running a big department.
The trouble is that some people who get sacked don't give a damn about returning to government, and want to go rogue as revenge. And there's very little the Prime Minister can do about that. The only thing that may keep some quiet is the damage bickering could do to colleagues in marginal seats this close to an election.
14.30 James Forsyth says that Brooks Newmark’s and Nick Gibb’s returns to government show that it is possible to earn forgiveness from David Cameron:
Brooks Newmark and Nick Gibb both back in the government, clear attempt to show that you can come back if you behave after being dropped
13:28 Nick Gibb, the former Minister of State for Schools, has returned to the Education Department in the same role he left in 2012.
13.22 One name tipped for a Cabinet return was Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary. Fraser has the news that Fox turned down a role a Minister of State at the Foreign Office:
I can confirm that Liam Fox was offered Minister of State at the Foreign Office with responsibility for India, China and Latin America. He has rejected the offer, even when it was later sweetened with the offer of a place in the National Security Council. Fox, a former party chairman and defence secretary, had been tipped for a comeback and foreign policy is one his great loves (he recently wrote a book, Rising Tides, about the various risks the world faces). So why turn it down?
Read Fraser's blog here.
13.05 Here's a round-up of some tweets with reaction to the reshuffle:
Welcome nomination of Lord Hill as UK commissioner. We now need a good economic portfolio so we can work to make EU more competitive.
— Katja Hall (@CBIKatja) July 15, 2014
Yes on reflection am certain the biggest longterm significant political change today is Jeremy Heywood announcemnt not new SoS and Ministers — Giles Dilnot (@reporterboy) July 15, 2014
Tory radicals despair at move of Gove. Wonder aloud how long it will take for Nicky Morgan to be captured by education establishment. — Andrew Neil (@afneil) July 15, 2014
Good #reshuffle for Oxford this morning. Hammond, Morgan and Truss IN. Oh, sorry, they replaced Oxbridge grads. #representative — Election-data (@election_data) July 15, 2014
Osborne has previously briefed wants foreign secretaryship post-election. So Hammond left as caretaker until job swop. In National Interest? — Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) July 14, 2014
12.32 Amber Rudd has been appointed a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Energy and Climate Change; Penny Mordaunt Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government. That makes eight women promoted so far.
12.28 Former Whip Claire Perry is in as Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport.
12.27 Priti Patel joins the government as a minister at the Treasury:
Priti Patel has been appointed as Exchequer Secretary @hmtreasury #reshuffle — UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
12.21 Anna Soubry has had a promotion at Defence – she moves from Under-Secretary of State for Defence Personnel, Welfare and Veterans to Minister of State. 12.13 The reshuffle is hollow and it’s about image rather than ideas – which shows just why five-year parliaments are a bad idea, says Fraser Nelson:
We’ve just seen why five-year parliaments are a lousy idea in British government. Even David Cameron, it seems, can’t think of a use for his fifth year – so he has reshuffled his team appropriately. All of the appointments here seem to be assembling a Cabinet for spin. James Forsyth counts no fewer than four government ministers whose main duty is to spin: William Hague (Leader of the House) Michael Gove (Chief Whip), Esther McVey (who stays in welfare but attends Cabinet) and Grant Shapps, who stays as chairman. No10 is quite explicit about this. It has just told the parliamentary press gallery that ‘you should expect to see great deal of Michael Gove on your TV radio channels’. Lucky old us. I’d prefer to have seen him reforming education and changing the life chances of pupils.
Read the full post here. 12.09 David Gauke replaces Nicky Morgan as Financial Secretary to the Treasury:
David Gauke is promoted to Financial Secretary to the Treasury. #Reshuffle — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) July 15, 2014
12.03 Fraser is bemused by Nick Boles’ ‘equal marriage implementation’ brief:
Nick Boles will be responsible for ‘equal marriage implementation’, says the Prime Minister. An interesting phrase – how do you implement marriage? Will he now go around the country telling same-sex couples to put a ring on it? I suppose the PM’s overall point is that he wants to present his tweaking of Tony Blair’s breakthrough Civil Partnerships Bill (adding a word: ‘marriage’) as one of the great achievements of his government.
Nick Boles is Minister of State for the Business & Education depts. Part of his brief will be equal marriage implementation. #Reshuffle — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) July 15, 2014
11.55 Isabel on Nick Boles’ ‘weird appointment’. Is Number 10 trying to neutralise housebuilding as an issue?
Another weird appointment in this reshuffle: Nick Boles is moving to Matt Hancock’s old job as minister of state for education and business. He does have background in this area: at Policy Exchange his focus was initially on education, and he was director when the think tank produced reports on free schools and the pupil premium. So why is this move weird? Boles is a passionate advocate of the Conservative party building sufficient homes for the next generation. He has used wonderful Macmillan-esque language about this great social need. But though he had no hand in the development of the National Planning Policy Framework, he ended up being the focus of a great deal of rage about the flaws in that planning policy. And though he gave many eloquent interviews and speeches, he was given very little freedom to implement his best ideas. Part of the problem was the phobia of his boss, Eric Pickles, of anything that would upset core Conservative voters but which might build more homes. Pickles wanted to keep the NPPF sealed. Even though the Conservatives have appointed another Policy Exchange planning wonk, Alex Morton, to their Number 10 policy team, this move is a sign that they simply want to neutralise housebuilding as an issue. Which is what they seem to be doing on a great number of issues, including education.
11.53 Part of Nick Boles’ brief will be—apparently—the ‘implementation’ of equal marriage. Boles has already implemented his own civil partnership:
Nick Boles is Minister of State for the Business & Education depts. Part of his brief will be equal marriage implementation. #Reshuffle — David Cameron (@David_Cameron) July 15, 2014
11.38 Nick Boles, the former planning minister, is back in the at the Department for Education and BIS. Mark Harper is back, after his honourable resignation just five months ago, as Minister of State at the Department for Work and Pensions.
11.35 It looks like Labour’s press machine – not always the most efficacious – is coping well today, says Isabel:
Labour’s press machine has fallen victim to the same sort of poisonous briefing seeping out of many parts of the party in recent weeks. But today it appears to be doing pretty well. A reshuffle in a government party is always a tricky proposition for an opposition party, but there is no shortage of briefings and background digging on new ministers going on. And Labour MPs have had a line to take – that this is a reshuffle for the right that will take Britain closer to exiting the EU – since last night. The question is now how will Labour’s shadow frontbenchers deal with their new opponents? Tristram Hunt, for instance, may find it easier to spar with Nicky Morgan in the Commons than he has with Michael Gove, who has been trying to set a record for the number of departmental questions sessions he can endure without answering a single question directly.
11:30 Former Minister of State for Disabled People Mike Penning is the new policing minister:
Mike Penning has been appointed as Minister of State @ukhomeoffice and Minister of State @MoJGovUK #reshuffle — UK Prime Minister (@Number10gov) July 15, 2014
11.26 Here’s Tina Stowell accepting her Peer of the Year award at the Spectator‘s Parliamentarian of the Year awards in 2013:
11.23 Isabel on the appointment of Baroness Stowell:
Michael Gove's departure from the Department for Education is the biggest shock of this reshuffle. Tory MPs have been even more surprised by it than they were William Hague's leaving the Foreign Office.
Comments