New health and social care secretary appointed

A new health and social care secretary has been appointed following Wes Streeting’s resignation this week.

Former chief secretary to the Treasury and Ealing North MP James Murray will succeed Mr Streeting, who resigned on Thursday (14 May) citing his ‘lost confidence’ in the Prime Minister.

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Mr Murray, appointed by the government last night, has previously held several senior economic roles, including shadow financial secretary.

He has also served as executive member for housing and development at Islington Council from 2010 until 2016, after being elected as a councillor for the authority in 2006 and was deputy mayor of London for housing and residential development from 2016 to 2019.

Following his appointment, Mr Murray posted on social media that he was ‘deeply honoured’ to be given the role and said that he could not wait to ‘get started and continue Wes Streeting’s brilliant work on such a critical mission’ for the country.

In a public resignation letter to Sir Keir Starmer on Thursday, Mr Streeting said despite the Prime Minister having ‘many great strengths’ he admires, he has ‘lost confidence’ in his leadership, stating it would be ‘dishonourable and unprincipled’ to therefore remain in his post.

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Mr Streeting said he was ‘deeply saddened’ to leave his role but pointed to last week’s ‘unprecedented’ election losses for Labour as the reason for quitting.

He wrote: ‘Last week’s election results were unprecedented – both in terms of the scale of the defeat and the consequences of that failure.’

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He added: ‘There is no doubt that the unpopularity of this government was a major and common factor in our defeats across England, Scotland and Wales.’

‘Serving as your secretary of state for health and social care has been the greatest joy of my life and, regardless of our differences this week, I remain truly grateful to you for the opportunity to serve and I am deeply saddened to be leaving government in this way,’ he said.