David Cameron denies lobbying row should rule out return; Esther McVey made minister without portfolio – UK reshuffle live | Politics

Aletha Adu

Francis Maude, who served as Cabinet Office minister under David Cameron, has recommended streamlining the governance of the Civil Service in a report published on Monday after a year-long review.

Lord Maude said the centre of government should be reorganised with a full-time “head of the civil service” role and policy advisor split from the role of cabinet secretary in order to implement widespread change.

Describing the current government structures as “opaque”, “unclear” and “archaic”, Lord Maude also recommended giving ministers a greater role in the appointment of some civil servants.

The government rejected his recommendations with then Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin noting implementing them now would “serve to detract from the focus on the Prime Minister’s five critical priorities”.

Quin explicitly ruled out “a significant restructure of the machinery of central Government” or changes to the role of cabinet secretary.

Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect trade union, accused Lord Maude of proposing the “politicisation” of the Civil Service.

He said:

While we may welcome some of Francis Maude’s proposals the idea that ministers should be able to politicise Civil Service appointments is simply wrong. It would remove one of the most essential founding principles which sets us apart from less effective systems of government.

Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns – a Boris Johnson loyalist – said she has submitted a letter of no confidence in Rishi Sunak following Monday’s reshuffle.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, she said:

Enough is enough, I have submitted my vote of no confidence letter to the Chairman of the 1922. It is time for Rishi Sunak to go and replace him with a ‘real’ Conservative party leader.

In a letter to 1922 Committee chairman Sir Graham Brady, Jenkyns said that “enough is enough”. She continued:

If it wasn’t bad enough that we have a party leader that the party members rejected, the polls demonstrate that the public reject him, and I am in full agreement. It is time for Rishi Sunak to go.

She said that forcing Boris Johnson out was “unforgivable enough”, but “to purge the centre-right from his cabinet and then sack Suella who was the only person in the cabinet with the balls to speak the truth of the appalling state of our streets and a two-tier policing system that leaves Jewish community in fear for their lives and safety.”

She said she submitted her no confidence letter in Sunak “to stand up and fight for true Conservatism”.

Former cabinet minister Esther McVey has returned to the government.

The Conservative account on social media site X said she was a “cabinet minister” without specifying her job.

Downing Street said McVey would attend cabinet as a minister without portfolio.

Esther McVey reportedly going to Cabinet Office ‘to tackle wokery’

Andrew Sparrow

At the afternoon lobby briefing some journalists were asking what was in the reshuffle for red wall voters. (See 5.37pm.) We have finally got an answer. Esther McVey, a rightwinger and former work and pensions secretary, has been made a Cabinet Office minister. And, according to a story by Harry Cole and Noa Hoffman for the Sun, she will be “common sense tsar” tasked with tackling “the scourge of wokery”.

God knows what that means, but the Sun seems to approve.

McVey is also a GB News presenter, and she may be the first employee from the channel to join the government.

Last week on GB News McVey was defending Suella Braverman.

That is all from me for today. My colleague Tom Ambrose is taking over

At an afternoon lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson (who deals with government matters) and his press secretary (who deals with party politics) have been taking questions on the reshuffle. Here are the main points.

• Downing Street implied Suella Braverman was sacked because of the tone of what she was saying, rather than because of a disagreement over policy. The press secretary said:

[The PM and Braverman] had a professional working relationship. Clearly there were some issues around language. The prime minister said he would use some of the words that she’s used before. Ultimately the prime minister reserves the right to change the team sheet at a point where he sees fit. He felt it was the right time to make some changes to his top team.

The PM believes collective responsibility is important. And it is important that the government speaks with one voice.

I think you’ll see a lot of women kind of rising up the ranks today. What I will also say is Conservatives don’t tick box diversity. We’ve had three female leaders.

Obviously at a time of sort of significant global instability, it’s a huge advantage to have someone that brings a huge amount of experience to that role and is already an established figure on the on the world stage.

• No 10 did not accept that having David Cameron in the Lords would require new arrangements to enable MPs to hold him to account. The Commons speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, thinks new arrangments will be needed. (See 3.49pm.) The PM’s spokesperson said there was precedent for having secretaries of state in the Lords. The last was Nicky Morgan, who was briefly culture secretary in the Lords after the 2019 election. Andrew Mitchell, the development minister, will lead for the Foreign Office in the House of Commons.

• Cameron will not take his allowance as a former PM (worth up to £115,000 a year) while he is foreign secretary, the spokesperson said.

David Cameron has recorded a pooled clip with Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, which is now being broadcast.

He says he hopes his six years as PM will give him useful contacts and relationships that will enable him to help the PM in his new job. He says he wants to support the PM.

Asked about the Treasury committee’s report saying his lobbying for Greensill Capital showed a lack of judgment, Cameron says the most important job he has done since leaving the Commons is to be president of the Alzheimer’s Society. He says he has resigned from that and all his other jobs so he can focus on being foreign secretary.

Asked again about the Treasury committee’s report, he says that was dealt with at the time. He says he is now focused on his one new job.

Q: What do you say to the speaker, who has raised concerns that you cannot be held to account in the Commons?

Cameron says he will be held to account in the Lords. Andrew Mitchell, the development minister, will answer questions in the Commons, he says. He says he will answer questions from select committees. And the government will be accountable at the general election, he says.

Lisa O’Carroll

David McAllister, the German MEP who heads the European parliament’s foreign affairs committee, has welcomed David Cameron’s “surprise” return to the international stage.

He said Cameron would help rebuild the partially repaired relations with the EU. He said:

I have known him for 15 years and I wish him well. He is a very experienced politician and knows the international business of politics, knows the EU and knows the EU institutions and I think he should be given a chance.

On his role in causing Brexit, he said:

He was responsible for the referendum and it turned out the way it did, but to be fair to David he was in favour of remaining in the EU.

McAllister said credit and thanks should also be given to his predecessor James Cleverly, for “improving the relations between the UK and the EU” after two previous prime ministers Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell has also welcomed David Cameron’s return to British politics as an opportunity to strengthen relations between the bloc and the UK on security and foreign relations in Ukraine, Middle East and elsewhere.

Greg Hands, the former Tory chair, has been made a minister of state in the Department for Business and Trade, No 10 says.

And John Glen, who was chief secretary to the Treasury, has been made paymaster general in the Cabinet Office.

Lee Rowley is the new housing minister, No 10 has announced. He was local government minister.

Environmental groups seem to be taking a “good riddance” approach to Thérèse Coffey’s departure as environment secretary. (See 12.54pm.)

This is from Paul de Zylva, nature campaigner at Friends of the Earth.

Thérèse Coffey’s time as environment secretary was mired in controversy. Her lasting legacy will be the complacency she showed in dealing with the ongoing sewage scandal, which has seen the near-complete deterioration of our precious rivers and seas.

While she did ensure the UK played a positive role in last year’s UN biodiversity talks, she will also be remembered for unhelpful speeches that pitted the interests of farmers, business leaders and environmental groups against each other instead of working to unite them.

Steve Barclay is picking up a brief that has been neglected throughout the majority of his party’s time in office – there is a lot of lost time to make up for. Given the dire state of nature in the UK, he must start by urgently addressing the poor performance of polluting water companies and the regulator Ofwat. He must support farmers to work in harmony with nature and slash harmful emissions, and properly resource and restore trust in the government’s wildlife and environment watchdogs.

And this is from Rebecca Newsom, head of politics at Greenpeace UK.

At the last election, the Conservative party was promising “the most ambitious environmental programme of any country on earth.” Now the in-tray for the incoming environment secretary is filling up faster than a river downstream from a sewage plant.

The issues are stark and require urgent leadership: clean up our waterways, get a grip on plastic pollution, help to deliver breathable cities, ratify the Global Ocean Treaty and make farming deliver for nature. That’s the success we need. So Steve Barclay needs to act fast, because unfortunately the British public are already seeing what failure looks like.

Wes Streeting taunts Tory MPs in Commons, saying Sunak thought none of them good enough to be foreign secretary

Aletha Adu

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, used his speech in the king’s speech debate in the Commons this afternoon to criticise David Cameron’s appointment as foreign secretary. Addressing the health minister Helen Whateley, Streeting said:

What kind of message does it send to their [Tory MPs constituents] that their own leader cannot find a suitable candidate for foreign secretary among those who sit in this house?

Lord Cameron has a lot to answer for when it comes to the NHS, the architect of austerity, a £3bn disaster that has led straight to the biggest health crisis in the history of the NHS. And that’s before we take into account his record of ushering in the golden age between Britain and China.