Jeremy Hunt Keeps Job As Health Secretary As Theresa May Stages Limited Cabinet Reshuffle

Jeremy Hunt has kept his job as health secretary in Theresa May’s cabinet reshuffle as the prime minister decided to keep most of her ministers in place.

May’s relaunch got off to a chaotic start after the Conservative Party accidentally tweeted that Chris Grayling was the new party chairman when the job had actually been given to Brandon Lewis.

Despite suggestions the prime minister may stage a sizable shake-up, most of her senior ministers have stayed put.

Chancellor Philip Hammond, Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, Brexit Secretary David Davis and Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson have all remained in post.

It had been widely speculated that Hunt could be moved sideways to a different department.

However he remains in post with the new title of secretary of state for health and social care in the rebranded Department of Health and Social Care.

May’s decision comes amid severe winter pressures on the NHS which have seen thousands of operations postponed.

David Lidington has been appointed to the powerful role of Cabinet Office minister - replacing Damian Green who resigned last month amid allegations about pornography on his computer and sexual harassment.

Lidington will stand in for May at PMQs when she is away. However he will not inherit Green’s title of first secretary of state.

Former Work and Pensions Secretary David Gauke has replaced Lidington as justice secretary.

Sajid Javid has kept his job as communities secretary in a renamed Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Greg Clark has kept his job as secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy.

James Brokenshire resigned as Northern Ireland secretary due to ill health and has been replaced by Karen Bradley.

May’s revamp of Conservative Party Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) following her election disaster has already triggered controversy, after Maria Caulfield, who has spoken against the decriminalisation of abortion, was made Tory vice chair for women.

Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister Jon Trickett said the prime minister was “simply rearranging the deckchairs in her reshuffle”.

“With the NHS in crisis, working people worse off and Brexit preparations in turmoil, Theresa May is leading a failing Government,” he said. “Theresa May has shown that her floundering Government is out of fresh ideas. It takes more than re-naming departments to erase seven years of failure.

“What the country desperately needs is a new approach. With Jeremy Corbyn, that’s what Labour offers: a new Britain, run in the interests of the many, not the few.”