Image: Number 10 [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
Nick Gibb departs along with Suella Braverman as David Cameron and James Cleverley are appointed
Education minister Nick Gibb has stood down, as a cabinet reshuffle gathers pace in the wake of Suella Braverman’s defenestration.
The reshuffle has also seen the surprise appointment of former prime minister David Cameron as foreign secretary and James Cleverly replacing Braverman as home secretary and changes at the health and environment departments. Science minister George Freeman has also departed.
The appointments follow prime minister Rishi Sunak’s removal of Braverman after a week of increasingly controversial comments from her about pro-Palestine protestors and other issues.
The news came as Gibb said he would not stand in the looming general election. The schools minister said: “I have been discussing taking up a diplomatic role after the general election. To enable me to do so I have asked the prime minister if I can step down from the government at the reshuffle and he has agreed.”
Gibb was joined in his departure by Will Quince, a minister in the health department with responsibility for research including the National Institute for Health and Care Research, clinical trials and life sciences.
Quince plans to step down at the general election, and said it had been “a huge honour and privilege to have served” in the Department of Health and Social Care including on work “to cement the UK as a life science superpower”.
The health secretary Steve Barclay has also been shuffled, and will move to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to replace ousted environment secretary Therese Coffey. He is replaced at health by Victoria Atkins.
This is a developing story and will be updated throughout the day.