Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is to be made a peer and appointed as a minister by Andy Burnham as the new prime minister continues his shake-up of operations after entering No 10.
Mr Sarwar will be elevated to the Lords and is expected to take up a ministerial post at the revamped Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, headed by Jonathan Reynolds, sources have told the Press Association.
It comes as Mr Burnham made a raft of ministerial appointments on Tuesday night and after he unveiled his Cabinet, which marked a clearout of loyalists to his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer.
Sarwar's Role and Background
Mr Sarwar, who has been Scottish Labour leader since 2021, was among the first to call for Sir Keir to stand down in February. He hailed successor Mr Burnham for his “bold Labour vision” as he entered No 10 this week.
Downing Street confirmed appointments including Dan Jarvis, who stepped in as Sir Keir’s defence secretary when John Healey resigned amid a funding row and has been returned to his previous post of security minister. James Murray, who was health secretary when Wes Streeting quit, has been made Financial Secretary to the Treasury and Paymaster General.
Anna Turley is no longer Labour Party chair and has instead been made a Home Office minister. Florence Eshalomi has become a housing minister and Andy Slaughter Solicitor General, freeing up their roles as heads of parliament’s housing and justice committees.
Reappointments and Cabinet Unity
There were also 17 re-appointments for ministers to remain in their roles, including Sarah Sackman as justice minister and Luke Pollard as defence minister.
Mr Burnham called for unity and told his Cabinet he will lead a “cost-of-living Government” after announcing an £850 million tax cut on electricity bills on Tuesday. No 10 said the Cabinet meeting reflected “a sense of a united team, a new sense of energy, and a second chance at a first impression.”
His first policy reflected the focus on helping hard-pressed people, but questions were raised about how it was being funded and whether the £45 a year it will save households is worthwhile.
Funding and Further Measures
The Government said the electricity bill VAT cut would be funded in part by scrapping Sir Keir’s digital ID project, which had been estimated to cost about £600 million a year over three years. That falls short of the estimated £850 million hit to tax revenues from the VAT cut, and funding for digital ID was meant to have come from unidentified Whitehall savings. Downing Street has insisted the plan is fully funded.
Single bus fares are to be capped across England from January under further plans, in a further measure to be announced. It echoes one of Mr Burnham’s policies as Greater Manchester mayor, which saw him set up a publicly-run transport system, bringing local bus services – the Bee Network – back under public ownership, with more routes and lower fares.
At Cabinet, Mr Burnham sat opposite his new Chancellor John Healey, and was flanked by Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo and Education Secretary and deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell. The Labour leader said the Cabinet he had assembled, after purging allies of Sir Keir, “reflects the party, the country, all backgrounds”, and told those who had survived the clear-out to take it as a “major vote of confidence”.
