Political editor WALTER CRONXITE on the roles given to Croydon’s Labour MPs following last week’s General Election
Movies and shakers: Among Steve Reed’s first tasks as Environment Secretary was to make a self-promotional video
While the messaging out of Whitehall was of fast, decisive action by the new government on a number of headline issues – scrapping the disastrous and costly Rwanda plan, implementing planning changes for onshore wind farms, changes to allow more houses to be built (though by private, for-profit developers) – the roll-out of ministerial jobs was conducted at a more sedate pace.
But by lunchtime today, Croydon’s two most senior Labour MPs, Steve Reed OBE and Sarah Jones, had both been duly confirmed, by order of the King, in government posts that matched their previous shadow roles.
Reed had ambled down Downing Street on Friday, shoulders swinging, doing his version of the Lambeth walk, looking as if the 60-year-old had come straight from a sarf London costermonger’s stall, with that self-satisfied smirk on his face that is liable to become all too familiar in the coming months.
By order of King Charles III: Sarah Jones was 13th on a long list of junior appointments
All that friendly banter with the huntin’, shooting’ and fishin’ lobbyists at the last Labour conference had paid off, and Reed was duly announced as Environment Secretary in new Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s first cabinet.
When they gathered in the cabinet room of No10 on Saturday morning, Reed was positioned as far away from Starmer, and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, as was physically possible. Pre-existing rivalries and collegiate reputations have not been erased by the General Election victory.
Throughout his brief tenure as Labour’s shadow environment spokesman, Reed had persisted in claiming that fining water company bosses would be enough to get them to mend their polluting ways, rather than re-nationalising the whole of the public utility.
Reed underscored his agenda for the environment by spending his first days in office recording a little self-promotional video.
Despatch box: Reed enjoys the ‘bling’ that goes with high-office
Friends of the Earth reacted to Reed’s appointment by saying that while Labour seems to “get” climate and energy, “it has traditionally fallen short on policies for our natural environment”. They said that there was a “huge nature-shaped hole in Labour’s thinking”.
Saying that Reed had “grasped the issues” when in the shadow cabinet, FoE’s Paul de Zylva said: “Now he is in government he must make protecting and restoring the nation’s depleted nature central to Labour’s plans to revive broken Britain, improve public health and cut costs to the NHS and society as a whole.”
Friends of the Earth want full funding for proper monitoring and reporting of all pollutants, not just sewage, something that has been noticeably absent from the toothless watchdog, the Environment Agency, under the laissez faire Tories.
The Countryside Alliance, the rural lobby group, was significantly more muted in their welcome of Reed’s appointment, saying that Reed has “talked about respecting the countryside” and had acknowledged Labour’s “past failings when approaching our rural community”.
The appointment of an MP for urban constituency Streatham and Croydon North as Environment Secretary has clearly left the Countryside Alliance sceptical about Labour’s promises. “Time will tell if these words are put into action,” said Tim Bonner, the Countryside Alliance’s CEO.
Jones, now the MP for Croydon West, had longer to wait for confirmation from Buckingham Palace, this morning, of her appointment as a minister of state working across two government departments – the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (snappy title, eh?) and the Department for Business and Trade.
Starmer’s government has opted against any of the time-consuming and expensive re-organisation of Whitehall departments which so often immediately follows a change of administration, even to the point of keeping the Johnsonian and Govian title of the department of levelling up – where Labour’s deputy PM, Angela Rayner, inherits the chaotic state of local government in England after 14 years of malign Tory austerity.
But Jones’s dual ministry role might suggest that somewhere down the line, Labour will be looking to streamline or alter the departmental structure, with Jones’s departmental boss, Ed Miliband, having a key role to play as Labour attempts to staunch its loss of members and supporters to the Green Party, over dissatisfaction for not being robust enough in tackling the climate crisis, among other failings.
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