Former long-serving schools minister Nick Gibb has returned to a ministerial post at the Department for Education, where he will be joined by Commons Education Select Committee chair Robert Halfon.
The two ministerial appointments to the DfE were announced by the government tonight following the appointment of Gillian Keegan as education secretary yesterday.
Both MPs are already big names in the sector with established backgrounds in education policy.
Mr Gibb (pictured) was the schools minister for most of the past decade and has been at the heart of major reforms of exams, testing and the curriculum during that time.
He was first appointed as a minister in 2010 in the coalition government when Michael Gove was education secretary. He was sacked from that post in 2012.
Nick Gibb back at the DfE
However, Mr Gibb returned as schools minister in 2014 in a reshuffle, when Mr Gove departed, and remained in place under the next four education secretaries: Nicky Morgan, Justine Greening, Damian Hinds and Gavin Williamson.
He lost the ministerial job in the 2021 reshuffle, when Mr Williamson was removed from post.
Incredibly, in the 12 months that have followed, there have been another five education secretaries: Nadhim Zahawi, Michelle Donelan, James Cleverly, Kit Malthouse and now Ms Keegan.
Mr Halfon, who was a skills minister in Theresa May’s government, has been the chair of the Commons Education Select Committee since 2017.
During his time as chair of the committee, Mr Halfon has been a strong proponent of reform of special educational needs and disabilies support and the curriculum. He introduced a Bill in Parliament that aimed to make it more difficult for schools to be closed in a national lockdown.
The portfolios of the two ministers have yet to be announced.
Before the latest reshuffle, the school standards minister was Jonathan Gullis and the skills minister was Andrea Jenkyns, and both are still listed as being in post on the DfE’s website.
