Starmer’s Cabinet: Thornberry ‘snubbed’ and McFadden made enforcer

Sir Keir Starmer has appointed a lawyer who has taken cases against British governments as the new Attorney General, in an apparent snub to Emily Thornberry.

In a surprise move, he has given a peerage to Richard Hermer, a KC from Matrix chambers, which Sir Tony Blair’s wife Cherie co-founded.

It means Mr Hermer has been given the job that was shadowed by Ms Thornberry in Opposition. On Friday night it was not clear whether Ms Thornberrry had a role in Sir Keir’s Cabinet.

Mr Hermer has brought a significant number of private international law claims against governments, including against officials in the UK, and also on behalf of UK servicemen and their families.

These include the Mau Mau litigation that led to the settlement of more 3,000 claims brought by individuals mistreated by the colonial regime in Kenya, and claims for mistreatment of civilians in Iraq, including on behalf of the family of Baha Mousa, who died in a British detention centre.

Mr Hermer has also represented Gerry Adams when the former Sinn Fein leader was being sued by victims of IRA bomb attacks and he brought litigation on behalf of UK citizens and residents held in Guantanamo Bay and acted on behalf of UK service personnel killed and seriously injured by friendly fire during the Iraq War.

He is also a former donor, having given £5,000 to Sir Keir for his Labour leadership campaign in 2020.

Sir Patrick Vallance

The Prime Minister also announced that former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance had been appointed minister for science.

James Timpson, the key-cutting and cobbling supremo, was appointed prisons minister. His appointment signalled that Sir Keir would be prioritising solving the prisons overcrowding crisis by making the appointment of a prisons minister on his first day in office.

Within hours of being appointed Prime Minister by the King, Sir Keir gave Pat McFadden – previously his national campaign co-ordinator – the title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

New Cabinet members were invited to walk down Downing Street in a strict order – and, in a sign of his importance, Mr McFadden was the third to enter No 10 behind Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, and Rachel Reeves, the first female Chancellor.

The title of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster does not carry any onerous responsibilities and is used by prime ministers to appoint a politician without a department to run the Cabinet. The previous holder was Oliver Dowden, who had a similar cross-governmental role under Rishi Sunak.

Mr McFadden’s appointment follows reports that Sue Gray, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, said the only thing that ministers would be marked on was “delivery”.

Others have said that Sir Keir will operate a “quad” to make key decisions, consisting of the Prime Minister, Ms Rayner, Ms Reeves and Mr McFadden.

The quad mirrors that of the 2010-15 Coalition, which employed two Tories and two Liberal Democrats. It enables quick decisions which can be hard to achieve with a full Cabinet.

Sir Keir’s version would exclude usually powerful ministers such as the Home Secretary and the Foreign Secretary.

Other appointments

Lisa Nandy was appointed Culture Secretary after the woman who was intended to take the job, Thangam Debbonaire, lost her Bristol seat to the Greens. In opposition, Ms Nandy was shadow international development secretary.

David Lammy was confirmed as Foreign Secretary, despite speculation he would not be given the same brief as he had in Opposition.

Yvette Cooper became Home Secretary as expected, Wes Streeting was named as the new Health Secretary and Ed Miliband was confirmed as Energy Secretary.

Other appointments included Shabana Mahmood, who was confirmed as Justice Secretary, Jonathan Reynolds as Business Secretary, and Liz Kendall as Work and Pensions Secretary.

John Healey is the new Defence Secretary and Louise Haigh is Transport Secretary. Steve Reed is the new Environment Secretary, Bridget Phillipson takes on education and Jonathan Reynolds becomes Business Secretary while Peter Kyle is Science Secretary. Ian Murray is the new Scottish Secretary, Jo Stevens is Wales Secretary and Hilary Benn is responsible for Northern Ireland.

Ms Phillipson, who has championed Labour’s pledge to impose VAT on private schools, said after her appointment: “Opportunity should be for all - not just a lucky few.”

‘A leading silk’

Rachel Holmes, chief executive at Matrix Chambers, said of Mr Hermer: “Richard has played an important role in Matrix’s development and success … as a leading silk in the areas of public and private international law.

“He has been committed to taking a modern and inclusive approach to the provision of legal services and to ensuring that access to justice is available to all. We wish Richard all the best as he takes on this important role.”

Sir Keir’s appointment of Mr McFadden, a 59-year-old Glaswegian, as his “Cabinet enforcer” shows that the new Prime Minister is keen to avoid the mistakes of Sir Tony Blair when he swept to power on 1997.

Sir Tony revealed in his diaries that in the early years he found that, despite unveiling a new policy, it was often difficult to get anything to change in the department and the policy did not get implemented.

Eventually, he appointed Jack Cunningham as enforcer in an attempt to make sure No 10’s remit was obeyed across Whitehall.

Economic growth

As the UK’s first female Chancellor, Ms Reeves told Treasury staff she wanted the Labour Government to work “hand in glove with business” as she vowed its “central mission” would be to boost economic growth.

“I want this to be the most pro-growth Treasury in our country’s history,” she said. “That will mean doing what the Treasury does best – building growth on a rock of economic stability.”

On Friday night, Lucy Powell was made leader of the House of Commons and Baroness Smith of Basildon the leader of the House of Lords. Sir Alan Campbell was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, while Darren Jones was made Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

David Lammy – Foreign Secretary

There had been speculation that Mr Lammy would not be made Foreign Secretary, speculation which only mounted when Sir Keir refused to confirm he would have the job during the election campaign.

Mr Lammy was largely absent from the campaign trail and the Labour leader was forced to distance himself from past remarks made by Mr Lammy about Donald Trump, the Republican candidate in November’s US presidential election.

In 2018, Mr Lammy called Mr Trump a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” and said he posed a “profound threat to the international order”.

Asked about those comments during a phone-in on BBC Radio 5 Live, Sir Keir said: “Those aren’t words that I’ve ever used. I’ve dealt with all sorts of leaders, when I was chief prosecutor, across the world.”

On Friday, Mr Lammy softened his words on Mr Trump, saying: “I will work closely with whoever is in the White House in the end. The US is a great democracy. In democracies, of course, there is debate and discussion and difference.”

He also said he understood the “agony” of communities which had voted against Labour over its hesitation in calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“All of us recognise the agony of communities who have seen the scenes coming out of Israel and Gaza,” she said.

“But the job now is to get to work with tireless diplomacy to support an immediate ceasefire and move towards getting those hostages out.”

He said he wanted to see “an immediate ceasefire” in the Israel-Gaza conflict.

Richard Moore, The MI6 chief tweeted his congratulations to Mr Lammy on his new appointment, writing: “A warm welcome to our new Foreign Secretary David Lammy. All at SIS [Special Intelligence Services] look forward to supporting him with world-class intelligence insight as he goes about his duties in this contested and challenging world.”

Lord Cameron, the previous foreign secretary, did not receive any such public message when he was appointed last December.

In his first act as Foreign Secretary on Friday night Mr Lammy announced a £500,000 support package for Caribbean countries affected by the destruction of Hurricane Beryl.

Lisa Nandy – Culture Secretary

Ms Nandy, whose promotion to Culture Secretary marked one of the few changes in the appointments, is set to oversee a review of the TV licence fee.

Four years ago, she blamed the Tories under Boris Johnson for fostering an “anti-media and anti-BBC feeling” on social media by threatening to scrap the licence fee.

In an article for LabourList, when she was standing to be party leader, Ms Nandy said she wanted to defend “free media” like the BBC and said she wanted to “protect” the licence fee.

She called for a new structure for the Corporation, under which it would be “owned and directed by licence fee holders” to prevent the threat of government interference.

“This anti-media and anti-BBC feeling is all over social media and goes all the way to No 10, with its hints that not only will non-payment of the licence fee be decriminalised but it could be scrapped altogether,” she said.

“But instead of joining in the pile-on, we need to be advocating for and defending free media, and especially the BBC. Because for all of its imperfections, it is based on a licence fee that provides it with the basis to speak truth to power.”

She added that she would “protect” the licence fee to ensure the BBC was not held to ransom over appointments and funding and was more “accountable” to the British people, as well as advocating for a new structure for the BBC’s board that would support “greater independence from the government”.

Ms Nandy also criticised the BBC for a London-centric bias against the north.

Just after the Labour defeat in the 2019 election she complained that she had been told by the Corporation that she would have to travel down to the capital from her Wigan constituency to be able to appear on the Andrew Marr Show.

“Setting up this interview was an absolute nightmare if I’m honest,” she told Mr Marr. “I was told that unless I came down to a London studio to talk about rebuilding our northern heartlands on Sunday I couldn’t come on the show.

“I’m grateful for you for changing that and allowing me to do it from up north. Unless we start urgently addressing these structural problems, we are never going to be able to hear and show proper respect to these communities that rejected us so decisively.”

‘The NHS is broken’

After being confirmed as Health Secretary, Mr Streeting said Labour’s position on the NHS was that it was broken.

“This government will be honest about the challenges facing our country, and serious about tackling them,” he said. “From today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken.

“That is the experience of patients who are not receiving the care they deserve, and of the staff working in the NHS who can see that – despite giving their best – this is not good enough.”

He added that following a call with the BMA junior doctors’ committee, he would begin talks to “end their industrial action” next week.

The doctors have been striking for months to secure themselves a huge pay rise.