Ministerial duties at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are still being decided, following the replacement of Rupert Ponsonby as the department's parliamentary under-secretary of state and spokesman in the House of Lords.
Defra confirmed to Research Fortnight that Ponsonby’s role as the department’s spokesman in the Lords will now be held by Conservative peer and government deputy chief whip John Gardiner.
Meanwhile, Ponsonby’s position as department’s parliamentary under-secretary of state, which the peer held between 2012 and 2015, was taken over by Rory Stewart, the Conservative MP for Penrith and the Border, on 12 May as part of prime minister David Cameron’s cabinet reshuffle.
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