Keir Starmer has finally filled the women and equalities brief in his government with Bridget Phillipson and Anneliese Dodds. Phillipson is the minister for women and equalities, along with her role as Secretary of State for Education. Dodds is minister of state for women and equalities, and has also been appointed a minister of state in the Foreign Office.
Starmer is trying to underline that this is a government with bags of experience even after 14 years of Labour in opposition
This is an interesting move given how thorny this policy area has become in the past few years. Dodds is well-known within the Labour party for being much more in favour of reform of gender recognition processes – something gender critical feminists are concerned about.
Phillipson also gave interviews during the election which attracted criticism from some campaigners because she said transgender women who still had penises could use female toilets. These appointments are, though, in line with the policy in the party’s manifesto on gender. What Phillipson has been less clear on is the guidance for schools on teaching about gender: she has previously said that lessons must not be based on ‘contested ideology’. Schools have been waiting for guidance for a while now.
Nick Thomas-Symonds takes over Jon Ashworth’s job as Paymaster General and minister of state for the constitution and European relations: a key role given the early mission to change the government’s relationship with the European Union.
Other figures with plenty of experience are coming into government. Heidi Alexander left parliament in 2018 to become a deputy mayor of London, meaning she is one of the rare breed of Labour MPs who actually have executive experience. She is now a justice minister. Chris Bryant was a minister under the previous Labour government and is now a minister of state in two departments: Science, Innovation and Technology; and Culture, Media and Sport. Stephen Timms, who served as Chief Secretary to the Treasury back in the last Labour government, and who has been chair of the work and pensions select committee since 2020, goes into the Department for Work and Pensions: very much a peg fitting the hole in a department with a huge reform agenda ahead of it.
Another select committee chair to move into their brief in government is Diana Johnson, who goes from being chair of the home affairs committee to working in the Home Office as a minister of state. This suggests that she is happy with the arrangements for victims of the contaminated blood scandal, on which she has campaigned for years. She also brings a huge amount of expertise on illegal immigration, having carried out numerous inquiries into it.
Once again, Starmer is trying to underline that this is a government with bags of experience even after 14 years of Labour in opposition. Many of these appointments cover the most controversial policy areas in government, though, and the new ministers will be very aware of how carefully they will need to tread.
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