Former minister joins Streeting’s team

Two new health and social care ministers, who previously held roles in the shadow team, have been announced by the new government.

Labour life peer Baroness Merron, who was minister of state for public health in Gordon Brown’s administration from 2009 to 2010, has been shadow spokesperson for health and social care since 2021.

She has been named parliamentary undersecretary of state in health and social care secretary Wes Streeting’s new ministerial team.

Andrew Gwynne, MP for Gorton and Denton, has also been appointed parliamentary undersecretary of state for public health and prevention.

He was shadow minister for social care from 2023 until the 2024 election.

They join the earlier appointments of Karin Smyth and Stephen Kinnock as ministers of state.

Welsh MP Mr Kinnock, the new care minister, was an unexpected appointment to the Department of Health and Social Care – having previously covered the immigration brief.

Former NHS manager Ms Smyth is a more familiar face, having held many roles in the health service, including in NHS commissioning, as a non-executive director of a primary care trust, and as manager of a GP commissioning consortium.

Mr Streeting himself has had a busy start to his new brief, having met with junior doctors to discuss strike action and declaring the NHS to be “broken” earlier in the week.

The announcements for Baroness Merron and Mr Gwynne bring the total number of ministerial appointments in the new DHSC team to five.

1.10pm on 10 July: Corrected four ministers to five.