Political Updates 30th October 2017

This week’s Political Updates, covers moves and changes at all levels of government. 

  Government Departments

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

• UK Government Investments have expanded their senior management team; Tom Cooper and Candida Morley have joined as directors, and Michael Harrison and Henry Lloyd have been promoted to become directors.
• Jennifer Rubin has been appointed as Executive Chair of UK Research and Innovation from 1^stApril, whilst Harpal Kumar has been appointed Innovation Champion.
• Fiona Dickie has been appointed Deputy Pubs Code Adjudicator.

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

• Antony Phillipson has been appointed Her Majesty’s Consul General in New York and Director-General of International Trade North America.
• Martin Longden has been appointed as the UK’s Special Envoy to Syria in succession to Gareth Bayley.
• Kate Airey has been appointed British High Commissioner to the Republic of Namibia.

Department for Education

• Richard Pennycook has been appointed as Lead Non-Executive Board Member.
• Maria Caulfield MP, Stephen Metcalfe MP and Trudy Harrison MP have been named as Apprenticeship Ambassadors.
• Helen Grant MP has replaced Nus Ghani MP as Chair of the Apprenticeship Diversity Champions Network.
• Trudy Harrison MP has been appointed as Co-Chair of the Apprenticeship Delivery Board.
• Dominique Unsworth has been appointed as an SME Ambassador.

House of Commons

• Jared O’Mara has been suspended from the Labour Party. He has also resigned as a member of the Women and Equalities Committee.
• Chris Davies has replaced Rehman Chishti as a member of the Backbench Business Committee.
• Dan Carden and Bambos Charalambous have been appointed as members of the Procedure Committee.
• Stephen Kinnock and Liz Saville Roberts have been appointed as members of the Welsh Affairs Committee.
• Emma Dent Coat has replaced Marsha De Cordova as a member of the Work and Pensions Committee.

House of Lords

• Baroness Trumpington (Conservative, Life Peer) has retired.
• Baroness Anelay of St Johns has resigned from his post as  Minister of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union. Lord Callananhas replaced him.
• Lord Prior of Brampton has resigned from his post as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. Rt Hon Lord Henley has replaced him.
• Lord Duncan of Springbankhas been appointed as a joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Scotland Office and the Northern Ireland Office (having previously been a joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Scotland Office and the Wales Office).
• Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth has been appointed as a joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Wales Office (having previously been a joint Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Northern Ireland Office).
• Baroness Sugg CBEhas been appointed as a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport (having previously been a Government Whip (Baroness in Waiting)).
• Baroness Stedman-Scott OBEhas been appointed as a Government Whip (Baroness in Waiting).
• Baroness Blackstone has replaced Baroness Gould of Potternewton as a member of the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.
• Lord Cavendish of Furness replaced Baroness Scott of Bybrook as a member of the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 Committee.

European Parliament

• This week, MEPs will undertake activities outside the Parliament. They will work either in their constituency in their home country, where they have the opportunity to interact with their electorate, or in Parliamentary delegations, responsible for maintaining relations with non-EU countries.