New Tory leader Badenoch starts appointing top team

New Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has started making the first appointments to her top team, ahead of her new shadow cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Badenoch has given former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott the job of shadow education secretary, with Neil O’Brien appointed shadow education minister, the BBC understands.

Both will appear in their new roles in the House of Commons later for Education Questions.

Meanwhile, Nigel Huddleston and Lord Dominic Johnson have been appointed as joint chairmen of the Conservative party, the BBC understands.

It follows the appointment of Castle Point MP Dame Rebecca Harris as Tory chief whip on Sunday evening.

Badenoch was declared winner of the Conservative Party’s leadership election on Saturday, beating Robert Jenrick.
She told staff at Conservative headquarters on Monday that the Tories could be back in government within five years, a party source has told the BBC.

Badenoch said their first challenge was listening to local Tories and winning back council seats in next May’s local elections.

Trott has been MP for Sevenoaks in Kent since 2019, and served as number two in the Treasury under Jeremy Hunt when he was chancellor.

Neil O’Brien has been MP for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston since 2017 and was most recently a health minister.

He resigned from Sunak’s government in November 2023 and took a more critical stance on the then-prime minister from the backbenches.

While Trott and Huddleston supported Badenoch in the leadership, O’Brien had supported her rival Jenrick.

Huddleston, who is MP for Droitwich and Evesham in the West Midlands, previously worked under Badenoch as a minister when she was business secretary. He was most recently a treasury minister.

Lord Johnson also worked under Badenoch as a trade minister, after being appointed to the Lords by Liz Truss during her brief spell as prime minister. He had a previous spell as vice-chairman of the party under Theresa May between 2016 and 2019, and has donated more than £275,000 to Tories in the past decade.

He co-founded the investment firm Somerset Capital Management with former Conservative MP and minister Jacob Rees-Mogg in 2007.

A formal announcement of the full shadow cabinet is expected before its first meeting on Tuesday.

Badenoch is expected to give a job to her leadership rival Jenrick, after she said in her victory speech that he has a “key role to play in our party for many years to come”.

She said on Sunday that she would bring in people from all wings of the party to her team.

She said she wanted a “shadow cabinet that is meritocratic, that brings in a diverse field of experience, geographic diversity, background, the sort of work experience, professional experience that the MPs had before they came [into parliament]”.

The current Labour government has 120 ministers, meaning the Tories may struggle to shadow all posts given they only have 121 MPs.

Former Home Secretary and defeated leadership candidate James Cleverly last week ruled out serving in the shadow cabinet, telling the FT he had been “liberated” from 16 years on the political front line and was now “not particularly in the mood to be boxed back into a narrow band again”.

Former Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, former Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden and former Environment Secretary Steve Barclay have also said they will return to the backbenches and not serve in the new shadow cabinet.