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Ministerial reshuffle (September 2021)

The Government has undertaken a ministerial reshuffle, with changes to the Ministers responsible for charities and charity taxation. Full details can be found here.

Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury: Helen Whately MP has been announced as the new post-holder. She replaces Kemi Badenoch MP who has been promoted to a role at MHCLG. This role has responsibility for charities, the voluntary sector and Gift Aid. Helen Whately was most recently Minister for Care at the Department of Health and Social Care and previously Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (which included heritage arts and tourism in the brief). She has been Conservative MP for Faversham and Mid Kent since 2015 after an initial career in management consultancy and PR roles. Since 2015, she has been a vice-president of the Maidstone branch of the learning disability charity Mencap.

You can read CTG’s letter to the new Minister here.

Financial Secretary to the Treasury: Lucy Frazer QC MP has been announced as the new postholder, replacing Jesse Norman MP. The Financial Secretary  is the Treasury Minister of State responsible for tax policy and customs with specific responsibility for VAT and the Finance Bill. She was previously Solicitor General and was elected as Conservative MP for South East Cambridgeshire in 2015.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury: Simon Clarke MP has replaced Steve Barclay MP. Clarke was formerly Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury with responsibility for charities, but was only in post for a short time.
Culture Secretary: Nadine Dorries MP has been confirmed as the Secretary of State at DCMS, replacing Oliver Dowden MP. The Office of Civil Society has recently been located within DCMS, although its future is still to be confirmed.

Minister for Civil Society: The position is currently vacant after Baroness Barran was appointed to a new role at the Department for Education.

Housing Secretary: Michael Gove MP has replaced Robert Jenrick MP as Secretary of State. The newly named Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities has responsibility for the implementation of business rates policy and levelling up.

Levelling up: Andy Haldane, the former Bank of England chief economist and founder of Pro Bono Economics, has been appointed as head of the government’s levelling up taskforce. He is taking a sabbatical from his role as Chief Executive of the charity RSA. Danny Kruger MP, who led the government-commissioned review of civil society last year, has joined the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Kruger announced that he will be joining the department as parliamentary private secretary.