Prime Minister Andy Burnham has appointed several Greater Manchester MPs to his ministerial team, continuing to assign roles in government since entering Downing Street on Monday.
Junior Ministerial Appointments
A list announced on Wednesday evening included three MPs from Greater Manchester. James Frith, MP for Bury North, has been appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Health and Social Care. Jim McMahon, MP for Oldham West and Royton, is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. Paul Waugh, MP for Rochdale, has been appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education.
Cabinet Positions
Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor, also gave four Greater Manchester MPs seats in his Cabinet this week. Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, was named deputy Prime Minister and Education Secretary. Angela Rayner, MP for Ashton-under-Lyne, returned as Housing Secretary. Jonathan Reynolds, MP for Stalybridge, was appointed Business Secretary, and Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, remains as Culture Secretary.
Defending the Cabinet's Make-up
Reynolds earlier this week defended the new Cabinet, denying a risk of a 'north-south divide'. Asked if there was such a risk, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today: "No, there isn’t. I don’t want to get touchy about it, but I can’t remember previous occasions where people have objected to too many people from a different part of the country being in there." He added: "I think there’s the same number of cabinet ministers from Greater Manchester there was at the start of this Labour government in 2024. The Prime Minister has changed, but the rest of the Cabinet is broadly the same in terms of those names." Reynolds concluded: "So I don’t accept a bias for any part of the country. I do accept very much that this is a Prime Minister determined to make the economy work, the country work, for every single part of the UK."
