Kemi Badenoch has appointed Gareth Bacon as shadow transport secretary in her new shadow cabinet following her election as Conservative leader at the weekend.
Mr Bacon is the Conservative MP for Orpington, and has been an MP since December 2019.
Since Labour’s landslide election win, when a large number of ministers lost their seats, he simultaneously held the roles of shadow justice minister, shadow minister for London, and shadow minister for business and trade.
His only ministerial experience is as parliamentary under-secretary at the Ministry of Justice from November 2023 until the election.
Ms Badenoch, who held the first meeting of the new Shadow Cabinet on Tuesday morning, said: ‘My team draws on talents from across our party, based on meritocracy and with a breadth of experience and perspective, just as I promised during the campaign.
‘We will now get to work holding Labour to account and rebuilding our party based on Conservative principles and values.’
Kevin Hollinrake, a former business minister, was appointed as ‘shadow levelling up, housing and communities secretary’, despite the disappearance of Boris Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ slogan from the name of the department, which is now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
Jesse Norman, twice a transport minister, is the new shadow leader of the House of Commons.
Ms Badenoch’s choices for shadow ministerial roles were limited, both by a number of former senior ministers declining to join her shadow cabinet and the loss of many others at the election, including former transport secretary Mark Harper.
