Political editor WALTER CRONXITE on the roles given to Croydon’s Labour MPs following last week’s General Election
Movies and shakers: Among Steve Reed’s first tasks as Environment Secretary was to make a self-promotional video
While the messaging out of Whitehall was of fast, decisive action by the new government on a number of headline issues – scrapping the disastrous and costly Rwanda plan, implementing planning changes for onshore wind farms, changes to allow more houses to be built (though by private, for-profit developers) – the roll-out of ministerial jobs was conducted at a more sedate pace.
But by lunchtime today, Croydon’s two most senior Labour MPs, Steve Reed OBE and Sarah Jones, had both been duly confirmed, by order of the King, in government posts that matched their previous shadow roles.
Reed had ambled down Downing Street on Friday, shoulders swinging, doing his version of the Lambeth walk, looking as if the 60-year-old had come straight from a sarf London costermonger’s stall, with that self-satisfied smirk on his face that is liable to become all too familiar in the coming months.
By order of King Charles III: Sarah Jones was 13th on a long list of junior appointments
All that friendly banter with the huntin’, shooting’ and fishin’ lobbyists at the last Labour conference had paid off, and Reed was duly announced as Environment Secretary in new Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s first cabinet.
When they gathered in the cabinet room of No10 on Saturday morning, Reed was positioned as far away from Starmer, and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, as was physically possible. Pre-existing rivalries and collegiate reputations have not been erased by the General Election victory.
Throughout his brief tenure as Labour’s shadow environment spokesman, Reed had persisted in claiming that fining water company bosses would be enough to get them to mend their polluting ways, rather than re-nationalising the whole of the public utility.
Reed underscored his agenda for the environment by spending his first days in office recording a little self-promotional video.
Despatch box: Reed enjoys the ‘bling’ that goes with high-office
Friends of the Earth reacted to Reed’s appointment by saying that while Labour seems to “get” climate and energy, “it has traditionally fallen short on policies for our natural environment”. They said that there was a “huge nature-shaped hole in Labour’s thinking”.
Saying that Reed had “grasped the issues” when in the shadow cabinet, FoE’s Paul de Zylva said: “Now he is in government he must make protecting and restoring the nation’s depleted nature central to Labour’s plans to revive broken Britain, improve public health and cut costs to the NHS and society as a whole.”
Friends of the Earth want full funding for proper monitoring and reporting of all pollutants, not just sewage, something that has been noticeably absent from the toothless watchdog, the Environment Agency, under the laissez faire Tories.
The Countryside Alliance, the rural lobby group, was significantly more muted in their welcome of Reed’s appointment, saying that Reed has “talked about respecting the countryside” and had acknowledged Labour’s “past failings when approaching our rural community”.
The appointment of an MP for urban constituency Streatham and Croydon North as Environment Secretary has clearly left the Countryside Alliance sceptical about Labour’s promises. “Time will tell if these words are put into action,” said Tim Bonner, the Countryside Alliance’s CEO.
Jones, now the MP for Croydon West, had longer to wait for confirmation from Buckingham Palace, this morning, of her appointment as a minister of state working across two government departments – the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (snappy title, eh?) and the Department for Business and Trade.
Starmer’s government has opted against any of the time-consuming and expensive re-organisation of Whitehall departments which so often immediately follows a change of administration, even to the point of keeping the Johnsonian and Govian title of the department of levelling up – where Labour’s deputy PM, Angela Rayner, inherits the chaotic state of local government in England after 14 years of malign Tory austerity.
But Jones’s dual ministry role might suggest that somewhere down the line, Labour will be looking to streamline or alter the departmental structure, with Jones’s departmental boss, Ed Miliband, having a key role to play as Labour attempts to staunch its loss of members and supporters to the Green Party, over dissatisfaction for not being robust enough in tackling the climate crisis, among other failings.
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ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
Onshore wind farms great, one thing that LibDems did manage to do when in office and the Conservatives stopped.
Rwanda rejection great! But it needed to be combined with a policy to allow any asylum/refugee claim to be made at any British Embassy or Consulate anywhere in the world, thus at a stroke removing the need for anyone to pay thousands of pounds to crooks to go on a leaky boat. We could have charged £500 or even £1000 and the cost would have been largely if not entirely covered.
Finally, why not a government backed building company to construct/convert all the housing we need?
I would hope that the Countryside Alliance are bricking it over their continued promotion of hunting and shooting. Using their comments as a means of pouring cold sick over Reed’s appointment is a bit like being savaged by a dead…er…fox.
We must keep on writing to Steve Reed and asking for meetings! FoE are right. The policies must go much further!
With so many Labour councils supporting incineration rather than recycling and the moratorium on new incinerators lifted, I fear that the appointment of Steve Reed will be a source of celebration for incinerator companies and Incinerator apologists Sutton Liberal Democrats.
It is ironic that most of the airbourne pollution from Beddingtons incinerator ends up in North Croydon .
Hardly ironic Nick, more tragic that the majority of the airborne pollution drifts inexorably over some of the poorer parts of Croydon.
Maybe the upside will be that as the Minister responsible for the Environment, Steve Reed might start rigid regulatory enforcement of the environmental permit limits to ensure that every exceedance comes with a commensurate prosecution, fine, and mitigating measures to really prevent recurrence. If nothing else, he and Sarah Jones owe it to those that elected them.
Problem is – the incinerator bosses aren’t being punished for pollution lapses. I mean, really have their feet held to the fire. The only organisation doing this, so far, is Inside Croydon