Who’s in Keir Starmer’s new cabinet?

Sir Keir Starmer is the first Labour leader to oust a sitting Conservative government since Tony Blair’s landslide victory in 1997.

The new prime minister has promised change on a manifesto to “rebuild Britain” after 14 years of Conservative rule.

Starmer trained as a barrister, specialising in human rights cases, and was director of public prosecutions from 2008-13 before becoming the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in north London.

He frequently describes himself as being from a “working class background” and often refers to the “pebble-dash semi” in Oxted, Surrey, where he grew up and that his dad was a toolmaker and his mum worked as a nurse.

Angela Rayner has been appointed deputy prime minister and secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities.

In opposition, the Ashton-under-Lyne MP, elected deputy Labour leader in 2020, shadowed those roles.

Rayner faced a bumpy ride at the start of the election campaign over the sale of a council house and her living arrangements before she became an MP. But police who looked at her case decided to take no action.

Rayner, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, grew up on one of the area’s poorest council estates.

The former care worker had a baby at the age of 16 and left school without any qualifications. She later qualified as a care worker and worked for the trade union Unison. She became an MP in 2015.

Rachel Reeves is the new chancellor of the Exchequer – the first woman appointed to the role.

She became Sir Keir Starmer’s shadow chancellor after the party’s defeat in the 2021 Hartlepool by-election, and Labour’s win puts her in the key position in government.

Reeves says she wants to stick to current strict spending plans and has wooed the City of London, getting business leaders past and present to endorse Labour’s economic plans.

She is reported to sing show tunes during campaign trips and listens to Beyonce when she runs.

She grew up in south London and worked as an economist before being elected as the MP for Leeds West in 2010. She is now the MP for Leeds West and Pudsey. Her younger sister Ellie Reeves has been a Labour MP since 2017.

David Lammy is the new foreign secretary.

Born to Guyanese parents in north London, and raised alone by his mother from the age of 12 after his father left them, he became the first black Briton to study a masters in law at Harvard.

At 27, he became Parliament’s youngest MP when he was elected in Tottenham in 2000 before becoming a junior minister under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

In opposition, he said Labour had an “iron-clad commitment” to supporting Ukraine.

He once called US presidential candidate Donald Trump a “neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath”, but has more recently insisted he would find “common cause” with Trump if he returned to the White House.

She is one of the highest-ranking women in the Labour Party.

In 1997, she was elected MP for Yorkshire seat of Pontefract and Castleford and went to serve as the first female chief secretary to the Treasury and later as work and pensions secretary in the Labour government.

After the 2010 election defeat for Labour, she took on the role of shadow home secretary.

Among other firsts in her political career, the former journalist became the first minister to take maternity leave, and she was one half of the first married couple in the cabinet – alongside her husband former education secretary and Strictly Come Dancing contestant Ed Balls.

Sometimes described as the the most powerful Labour politician most people have never heard of, Pat McFadden has been named chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

As the party’s national campaign co-ordinator McFadden was one of the masterminds behind Labour’s historic victory, constantly stressing the need for message discipline ahead of the election and warning activists and MPs alike to ignore the opinion polls.

He is likely to bring the same discipline and determination to his new role running the Cabinet Office, the department that supports the prime minister and co-ordinates the government’s policies to deliver its agenda.

A former adviser to Sir Tony Blair, the Glasgow-born MP has represented the Wolverhampton South East constituency since 2005, serving as a business minister under Gordon Brown and in several shadow ministerial roles since then.

Former barrister Shabana Mahmood has been confirmed as secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor, only the second woman – after Liz Truss – to hold the positions.

A former national campaign co-ordinator, she oversaw Labour’s Batley & Spen by-election win in 2021 which some have credited with saving Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership following a defeat in Hartlepool months earlier.

Mahmood lays claim to being the first female Muslim MP – although she was elected in 2010 alongside Yasmin Qureshi and Rushanara Ali – because, she says, her count was the first completed on the night.

The Birmingham Ladywood MP represents the city where she was born and brought up with her twin brother, and has spoken of how her faith “drives me to public service”.

The new defence secretary is John Healey.

In opposition he argued for higher defence spending and criticised cuts to the size of the Army – he has also insisted, along with new Foreign Secretary David Lammy, that the Labour government will have an “iron-clad commitment” to continue supporting Ukraine.

First elected in 1997, Healey served in Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’s governments and in Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinets.

He voted in favour of UK participation in the Iraq War in 2003 but says more should have been done to “follow through with the diplomatic, economic redevelopment regeneration and long-term security for Iraq”.

He represents the Wentworth and Dearne constituency in South Yorkshire.

Wes Streeting is the new health secretary, taking on the cabinet position he has shadowed since November 2021.

He immediately ruffled feathers when promoted to the shadow role by saying he wouldn’t “pretend the NHS was the envy of the world” and has insisted the service will need to reform under a Labour government.

However, the Ilford North MP has also had very personal reasons to praise the NHS, after he was diagnosed and treated for kidney cancer earlier in 2021, then aged 38.

He wrote about the experience in a memoir in which he also described growing up in a council flat in London’s East End, visiting his bank robber grandfather in jail and growing up as a gay Christian.

First elected to Parliament in 2015, Streeting had previously been president of the National Union of Students, and served as a London councillor.

New Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has often spoken of her own childhood – of seeing “first hand, what happens when you have schools that are falling down”.

Raised by her mother in a small terrace council house with rotting window frames and no upstairs heating in a former mining town near Sunderland, she was bullied at school and received free school meals.

But Phillipson credits “amazing teachers” for encouraging her to apply to Oxford, where she studied modern history.

She had joined Labour aged 15 and became its MP for Houghton and Sunderland South in 2010, aged 26. She has been a member of Sir Keir Starmer’s top team since he became Labour leader.

Children won’t get “a first-class education in second-class schools”, she argued after hundreds of schools had to close as a result of crumbling concrete.

Ed Miliband has been confirmed as the new secretary of state for energy security and net zero – a similar role to the one he held at the end of the last Labour government in 2010.

He remained committed to the issue of climate change during the party’s time in opposition and was one of the key supporters of its now scaled-back Green Prosperity Plan to invest in green industries.

Miliband has been the MP for Doncaster North since 2005 but has been at the centre of Labour politics for even longer – working for Labour MPs before the 1997 election win and as a special adviser to Gordon Brown when he became chancellor.

He is best known as a former Labour leader – having beaten his brother David, among others, in the leadership contest that followed the party’s 2010 general election defeat – but has also co-hosted the Reasons to be Cheerful podcast since 2017.

Former leadership challenger Liz Kendall has been appointed work and pensions secretary.

She is thought to be the first serving MP to have had a child through surrogacy and has spoken about her struggle to start a family, which included two miscarriages.

Kendall, who is seen as being on the right of the party, rose to prominence when she stood in the leadership election that followed the 2015 election defeat, losing to Jeremy Corbyn and securing just 4.5% of the vote.

But her pitch, which centred on the need for Labour to regain public trust on the economy and making the party electable, was a very similar strategy to the one Sir Keir Starmer has used to win Labour’s first election since 2005.

A former special adviser to Harriet Harman, Kendall has been the MP for Leicester West since 2010.

Jonathan Reynolds is the new business and trade secretary.

Reynolds, who has described himself as a Christian socialist, has spoken of how close he is to the “exceptional” Rachel Reeves, the new chancellor, and that he sees it as “the job of government not just to respond to markets but to shape them”.

The son of a fireman, Reynolds grew up in Sunderland – and still supports the city’s football club – but he went to university in Manchester, where he joined the Labour Party and chose to remain after graduating.

He has been the MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Greater Manchester since 2010 – he had been an assistant to the constituency’s previous MP James Purnell.

Peter Kyle is the new science, innovation and technology secretary.

Kyle says “unlocking the benefits of artificial intelligence is personal” to him because the cutting edge medical scans now being developed could have saved his mother, who died of lung cancer which was detected too late.

The former Brighton Pride trustee has been a shadow minister since Sir Keir Starmer became leader, including a spell as shadow Northern Ireland secretary.

He became MP for Hove and Portslade in 2015, but faced a battle against deselection before the 2019 election for a perceived lack of loyalty to then leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Kyle, who struggled at school and says he was sometime “humiliated” by teachers who did not know what to do with him, was diagnosed with severe dyslexia aged 25 and returned to school before completing a PhD.

Louise Haigh has been named as transport secretary.

Recognisable for her brightly dyed hair, Haigh was named the hardest-working new MP in 2016 due to the number of her Commons speeches and questions, and praised by then-Speaker John Bercow for her “terrier-like intensity”.

Keir Starmer made her shadow Northern Ireland secretary in 2020 before she took on the shadow transport brief in 2021.

The former special constable was also a shadow policing minister under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.

Haigh, the MP for Sheffield Heeley, is a former Unite union shop steward and ran the leadership campaign of Lisa Nandy, who she had worked for before entering parliament, in the contest to replace Corbyn in 2019.

Steve Reed has been named environment, food and rural affairs secretary – the role he shadowed in opposition.

He urged Labour to become the “party of the countryside”, and has spoken of wanting the government to support farmers through the green transition so the countryside is not “hollowed out” in the way he says mining communities were in the 1980s.

The son of a print worker and a nurse, Reed grew up on the outskirts of London and became the leader of Lambeth Council in 2006.

He has been Labour MP for Croydon North since winning a by-election in 2012. He has been the party’s shadow justice secretary, and before that held the communities and local government brief.

In 2018, Reed became the first Labour MP to pass a major act of Parliament since the party had left government in 2010, when his bill to protect people with mental ill health from violent restraint and tackle deaths in custody, known as Seni’s Law, became law.

Former Labour leadership challenger Lisa Nandy has been named culture, media and sport secretary.

Nandy stood against Sir Keir Starmer in the 2020 leadership race and was described as “refreshingly untribal” by one Tory MP who thought she was Labour’s best choice.

She finished third but her reward was to become shadow foreign secretary.
Nandy later shadowed Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove before moving to international development.

She has taken on the culture brief after Thangam Debbonaire, who shadowed the role, lost her seat in the election.

As co-founder of the Centre for Towns, Nandy has been a vocal champion of places like Wigan, which she has represented since 2010, arguing they have been overlooked in discussions on regional development and devolution.

Hilary Benn is a veteran parliamentarian, and has represented Leeds Central since 1999.

He served in the cabinet under Labour prime ministers Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and has been a leading Labour figure in opposition.

He has served as shadow foreign secretary and chairman of the Brexit select committee.

Benn is the son of former cabinet minister and veteran left-wing campaigner Tony Benn, who served in the cabinet under Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and James Callaghan.

Ian Murray has been named the new Secretary of State for Scotland, a role he shadowed from 2015-16 and again after Sir Keir Starmer became Labour leader.

First elected MP for Edinburgh South in 2010, Murray has twice been the only Labour MP with a Scottish constituency – after the 2015 and 2019 elections.

He is seen as being on the right of the party and was backed by both Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown when he stood for the deputy leadership in 2020. He came fourth.

Murray is a lifelong Hearts fan and has written a book about how he and other supporters came together to buy the Edinburgh club when its future was at risk in 2013.

Before entering politics he set up and ran an event management business in the city.

Cardiff East MP Jo Stevens has become the new secretary of state for Wales.

The former solicitor was elected as an MP for Cardiff Central in 2015, having been a Labour member and activist for more than 30 years.

She is one of a number of MPs, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, known to have needed hospital treatment for Covid in 2020.

She lists her interests as real ale, good books, the arts and music and sport – she’s a member of Glamorgan County Cricket Club and a regular at Cardiff City FC and at Cardiff Rugby.

Lucy Powell will be the leader of the House of Commons.

In the role, she is responsible for delivering the government’s legislative programme, by working closely with the chief whip to manage Commons business, like motions and debates.

Powell has been an MP since winning a by-election in Manchester Central in 2012 and several shadow cabinet roles, including stints leading on education, housing and culture.

A former campaign director at pro-EU pressure group Britain in Europe, she led new Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s successful campaign to become Labour leader in 2010 and was then his chief of staff for two years.

Baroness (Angela) Smith of Basildon has been appointed leader of the House of Lords.

The role, which she shadowed in opposition, sees her responsible for delivery of the government’s legislative programme in the Upper House.

She was an MP for Basildon throughout the last Labour government from 1997 to 2010, serving as a minister under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

She became a life peer in the 2010 Dissolution Honours List and is also patron of an animal welfare charity.

Sir Alan Campbell will be the chief whip in the House of Commons and will attend cabinet.

The job of chief whip is to ensure party discipline in the House of Commons. It means he will be responsible for making sure MPs vote in line with party policy.

Sir Alan has been MP for Tynemouth since 1997 and was Sir Keir Starmer’s opposition chief whip, but he also has experience in the Government Whips’ Office under Sir Tony Blair.

The former history teacher was knighted in 2019.

Darren Jones becomes the new chief secretary to the Treasury – the second most senior post in the department – and will attend cabinet.

Along with his boss Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Jones has been wooing business leaders to convince them that Labour will provide the stability and confidence he says they are “crying out for”.

He became MP for Bristol North West in 2017 and claimed in his maiden Commons speech to be the first “Darren” to have entered parliament.

Jones, a keen vegan cook who plays the saxophone, has described former Labour PM Sir Tony Blair as his “all time” hero MP.

Richard Hermer KC is Attorney General – the chief legal adviser to the government – and will attend cabinet.

It is a surprise appointment since Emily Thornberry had shadowed the role in opposition.

Hermer is not an MP and will be given a life peerage to allow him to sit in the House of Lords.

He has 31 years of experience at the bar, and has focused on human rights, public and environmental law.

In the role he will also oversee the Crown Prosecution Service, which Sir Keir Starmer led between 2008 and 2013.