David Cameron returns; Victoria Atkins promoted to health secretary; Suella Braverman and Thérèse Coffey out – UK reshuffle live | Politics

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.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle has told MPs that he investigating how MPs might get the chance to question the new foreign secretary, David Cameron. It won’t happen in the Commons chamber because Cameron will be in the Lords.

Addressing MPs in the chamber this afternoon, Hoyle said:

This is not the first time in recent years that a cabinet minister has been appointed in the House of Lords, but given the gravity of the current international situation, it is especially important that this house is able to scrutinise the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office effectively.

I have therefore commissioned advice from the clerks about possible options for enhancing [scrutiny] of the work of the foreign secretary when that post is filled by a member of the other house.

I also look forward to hearing the government’s proposals on how the foreign secretary will be properly accountable to this house.

Peers will, of course, get the chance to question Lord Cameron. But a more junior foreign office minister will take questions from MPs on Foreign Office policy, as happened in the past when the foreign secretary was a peer. (See 1.50pm.)

In fact, there is no need for Hoyle to ask the clerks to produce a briefing on how MPs can hold to account a foreign secretary sitting in the House of Lords. Before the 2010 election the Commons procedure committee produced a report on this very topic, inspired by the fact that Gordon Brown had made two peers, Lord Mandelson and Lord Adonis, business secretary and transport secretary respectively.

The procedure committee pointed out that until the early nineteenth century MPs could question peers by getting them to enter the Commons chamber and stand, or sit, at the bar of the house (the bit near the entrance, facing the speaker’s chair, marked by a thick line in the carpet). But it said that a better option would be to allow secretaries of states in the Lords to be questioned by MPs in Westminster Hall (the mini-chamber used for minor debates).

In its report, the committee recommended trialling this system on a pilot basis. It went on:

If the experiment were considered successful and if it were felt necessary to further develop and strengthen the scrutiny it permitted, there might then be a case for considering more radical options including, perhaps, questions on the floor of the house. Until that point we would consider it prudent to take a measured approach. The experiment in Westminster Hall may reveal new issues, be they constitutional or practical in nature, which could be valuable in deciding whether and how such scrutiny should continue.

Soon after the report was published, the election was held, Mandelson and Adonis lost their jobs, and the idea was dropped. But now there may be an appetite to revisit it.

The sacking of Rachel Maclean (see 2.01pm) means the UK is about to get its 16th housing minister since 2010. Housing campaigners are appalled, saying the government is failing to tackle problems in the sector because ministers change too frequently.

This is from Polly Neate, chief executive of the housing charity Shelter.

The revolving door of housing ministers over the past decade, and in particular the last 18 months, proves the government’s failure to grasp the scale and urgency of the housing emergency. Rents are rocketing, evictions are soaring and homelessness is at a record high, yet we haven’t had a minister stay in the job long enough to get to grips with the problem.

The 16th housing minister since 2010 has to hit the ground running and the first thing on their to do list must be to pass a watertight renters (reform) bill and scrap no fault evictions.

And this is from Tom Darling, campaign manager at the Renters’ Reform Coalition.

Rachel Maclean attended our events and, though we don’t believe the government are going far enough on rental reform, she was always willing to engage with us – we wish her well for the future.

It is frankly shambolic that we will now be on to our 16th housing minister since 2010, and incredibly 9 just since the government promised to end no-fault evictions.

Now, just before the first day of the important committee stage, which involves poring over the detail of the bill, she is sacked – it makes a mockery of government and shows a shocking lack of respect for England’s 11 million private renters.

Hannah White from the Institute for Government thinktank has a chart illustrating the pace at which the job has changed hands.

Today’s reshuffle means it is much less likely that this government will go into the next election floating the prospect of the UK withdrawing from the European convention on human rights.

Suella Braverman, who has been sacked, was the minister in goverment most in favour of ECHR withdrawal. She is out.

Her replacement, James Cleverly, spoke out against the idea earlier this year, the FT’s George Parker reports.

And Jo Johnson, the former universities minister who was head of policy at No 10 when Cameron was PM, has told Times Radio that his old boss would not be backing the government to put ECHR withdrawal on the agenda. Johnson said:

I can’t really see David Cameron returning to the Foreign Office and the first thing he’s doing is to lead a campaign for us to leave the European court of human rights. It seems to me highly unlikely.

Lisa O’Carroll

The outgoing Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, is generally not a man of few words. But when it comes to David Cameron he has uttered two more than the vast majority of EU leaders.

The Netherlands was a key ally of the UK in the membership years and a key ally of Ireland and campaigner for a soft Brexit post-2016.

And Laura Trott has been promoted from pensions minister to chief secretary to the Treasury, No 10 says.

Victoria Atkins has been made the new health secretary. She was financial secretary to the Treasury (a mid-ranking Treasury minister), and so this is a big promotion.