PM shakes up Home Office in sweeping reshuffle after Rayner exit

Sir Keir Starmer is carrying out a major reshuffle including wide-ranging changes at the Home Office as he seeks to tighten his grip on immigration and draw a line under Angela Rayner’s resignation.

Former borders minister Dame Angela Eagle and former policing minister Dame Diana Johnson have been moved to other departments in the clear-out.

The changes follow a sweeping Cabinet-level shake-up on Friday after former deputy prime minister Ms Rayner quit Government for breaching the ministerial code over a property purchase earlier this year.

Yvette Cooper was replaced as Home Secretary by Shabana Mahmood and took over as Foreign Secretary from David Lammy, who has been made Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary.

Former industry minister Sarah Jones will become policing minister, a brief she held in opposition, as part of Ms Mahmood’s new-look team along with Mike Tapp, the Dover MP from Labour’s 2024 intake, and Alex Norris.

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones earlier denied that the Government was in crisis and insisted Sir Keir now has the “strongest team” in place around the Cabinet table following Ms Rayner’s departure.

He ruled out the prospect of an early election amid opposition claims that the upheaval could open up splits within Labour and collapse the Prime Minister’s authority.

Speaking to broadcasters on Saturday, Mr Jones dismissed suggestions that the rejig could delay the Prime Minister’s self-described “phase two” of Government by moving senior figures to unfamiliar briefs.

“It’s not instability insofar as the outcomes that we’re delivering are the same,” Mr Jones, who is also the newly-appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, told BBC Breakfast.

“The Prime Minister had been planning a broader reshuffle on a slower timetable, but he brought that forward because that is his decision as Prime Minister. That’s exhibiting leadership and control, not chaos,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He rejected the idea Ms Cooper had been moved out of the Home Office because she was failing to control immigration, adding she would be “brilliant” in her new role as the UK’s top diplomat.

Ms Rayner quit as deputy prime minister, housing secretary and deputy Labour leader after an independent ethics investigation found she had failed to pay enough stamp duty on a seaside flat she bought in May.

In a letter published on Friday, Sir Laurie Magnus said he believed she had acted in “good faith”, but that “the responsibility of any taxpayer for reporting their tax returns and settling their liabilities rests ultimately with themselves”.

The ethics watchdog said that Ms Rayner’s failure to settle her full liability on the Hove property, along with the fact that this was only established following media scrutiny of her tax affairs, led him to consider the ministerial code had been breached.

Her sudden departure prompted the first major reshuffle of Sir Keir’s premiership.

Former Commons leader Lucy Powell and former Scotland secretary Ian Murray were dismissed and replaced with ex-chief whip Sir Alan Campbell and former trade minister Douglas Alexander respectively.

But in a partial about-turn, Mr Murray was later made a junior minister in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

A number of further changes were made on Saturday, including:

– Dame Angela moving from the Home Office to serve as a minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Dover MP Mr Tapp enters the Home Office, as does former local growth minister Mr Norris.

– Dame Diana has been replaced as policing minister by Ms Jones, and will now serve as a minister in the Department for Work and Pensions.

– Former Labour Party chairwoman Ellie Reeves was replaced by Anna Turley, who has been promoted to minister without portfolio and will now attend Cabinet.

– Ms Reeves, a qualified barrister and sister of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who will remain in post, becomes solicitor general – a more junior position.

– Businessman and former Grimsby Town FC chairman Jason Stockwood has been made investment minister. Mr Stockwood has stepped away from his duties at the club and will be given a peerage in order to take on the role.

– Starmer allies were promoted, including Baroness Levitt who was his principal legal adviser while he served as director of public prosecutions and becomes a justice minister.

– Chris Ward, who has served as the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary, has been made a Cabinet Office minister.

– Farming minister Daniel Zeichner and local government minister Jim McMahon have been sacked and will return to the back benches.

No 10 said the reshuffle was focused on “delivery”, including in areas like economic growth and securing borders, and sources suggested the changes will give ministers a renewed sense of purpose.

Losing his deputy will cause a headache for Sir Keir as he seeks to reset the Government following a difficult summer dominated by criticism of the small boats crisis and speculation about tax rises in the autumn Budget.

He also now faces the prospect of a party conference overshadowed by manoeuvring for the deputy leadership role vacated by Ms Rayner, who was popular among grassroots and seen as a bridge between No 10 and the wider party.

Mr Jones dismissed the idea that her departure could expose divisions between different factions within Labour after Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said “splits” would open up following the scandal.

“Nigel Farage is wrong there,” he told Sky News.

“The Labour Party is not going to split and there won’t be an early election.”

But some Labour backbenchers were highly critical of the changes and expressed concerns about what they meant for the direction of travel.

“Angela made an unbalanced cabinet look slightly more balanced,” one told the PA news agency.

“But it was almost entirely skin deep and cosmetic. On literally every major issue she has tucked in behind them. A few leaked memos do not a left wing policy agenda, make.”

They added: “Now even the semblance of that illusion is gone. Maybe for the party overall that’s for the better in the long run.

“As for the consequences: Starmer just signed his own death warrant. He has to be gone before (Christmas) otherwise Wes (Streeting) faces Andy (Burnham).”

Liverpool Riverside Labour MP Kim Johnson said the reshuffle looked like “moving deck chairs on Titanic” and “creating a London elite”, with the party’s “broad church” not represented in Government.

It is unclear whether Ms Rayner will take severance pay following her resignation, but Mr Jones said it would a “decision personally for her, as opposed to the Prime Minister”.

Labour has changed the system so that any ministers who leave office following a “serious breach” of the code will be denied a payout under rules expected to come into force next month.

From October, it will be for the Prime Minister to decide whether the rule-breaking in question meets that threshold.

Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Jones said: “Just as a matter of fact, in this circumstance, that is a decision personally for Angela Rayner as opposed to for the Prime Minister, which is how that will work when our new rules become live next month.”