Housing secretary and chancellor go as loyalists to former PM Keir Starmer head for exit door
New prime minister Andy Burnham has begun his Cabinet clear out hours after being formally appointed to the role with housing secretary Steve Reed and chancellor Rachel Reeves told they will not be part of his new top team.
Steve Reed, who took up the role last September after the departure of Angela Rayner, posted on X this afternoon announcing that he was “disappointed to be leaving government” and wishing Burnham’s new team “every success”.
Reed said he had “sped up work to devolve power out of Whitehall” and “made council funding fairer by re-establishing the link between funding and deprivation”.
He also said he had “strengthened planning reforms to speed up housebuilding across the country” and said the country had built more new council homes last year than in any other year for 40 years.
Reed, who unleashed the slogan ‘build, baby, build’, said he would “make no apology” for returning the loyalty he said had been shown to him by ex-prime minister Keir Starmer and that he hoped that “those who did not show loyalty to Keir will now show it to you”.
As had been expected previously, Starmer’s chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has also left her role. According to the BBC, Reeves had been offered a “big job” in the new government, but declined it.
In a statement on X, she said the economy today was “stronger, fairer and more resilient” because of the choices she had made.
She added: “To every young woman and girl, let my time in office show there should be no ceilings on your ambitions, your hopes or your dreams.”
Following the pair out of the Cabinet were business secretary Peter Kyle, attorney general Richard Hermer, technology secretary Liz Kendall and deputy prime minister and justice secretary David Lammy.
The six were all central figures in Starmer’s government and considered to be loyalists to the former prime minister.
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