Schools minister Nick Gibb has announced that he will be stepping down as part of today’s government reshuffle.
Mr Gibb tweeted this morning that he had asked the prime minister if he could leave his role in government ahead of taking up a diplomatic role after the next general election.
It comes as prime minister Rishi Sunak oversees a wider Cabinet reshuffle having sacked home secretary Suella Braverman this morning.
The long-serving schools minister wrote: “It has been a privilege to serve as schools minister for four prime ministers.
“I campaigned for Rishi last summer and I remain an enthusiastic supporter of the prime minister’s leadership.
“I am proud that over my 10 years as a minister, standards in schools have risen. England is fourth in the world in reading as a result of the phonics reforms and we are rising internationally for maths and English.
“We have transformed the curriculum so that it is knowledge rich.”
Who is Nick Gibb?
Mr Gibb has been schools minister for the majority of the past decade and has overseen major exam reform, championed the English Baccalaureate suite of subjects at GCSE and been a strong advocate for phonics.
He was elected as Conservative MP for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton in 1997.
He was first appointed as a minister in 2010 in the coalition government when Michael Gove was education secretary, but was removed from that post in 2012.
However, Mr Gibb returned as schools minister in 2014 following Mr Gove’s departure as education secretary, and remained in post 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, but returned in 2022 under current education secretary Gillian Keegan.
‘Deeply implicated’
Writing to the chair of his constituency’s Conservative Association to say he was planning to stand down as an MP, Mr Gibb said that he had “hugely enjoyed” his 10 years as schools minister, “helping to ensure that education policy is driven by the evidence and the most effective ways of teaching children”.
Mr Gibb also said that there were “significant long-term issues” in Britain to address, including “the unfairness that people encounter every day when dealing with public services and private monopolies”.
Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “All the problems facing the educational system have deepened during the period in which Gibb has presided over schools.”
Mr Gibb had been a “centraliser” who “sought to micro-manage the teacher education curriculum” and “imposed on schools his preferred method for the teaching of reading”, he said.
Mr Kebede added: “Nick Gibb is deeply implicated in the failure to ensure that the teaching profession cannot attract sufficient numbers of new teachers, nor retain teachers within the profession.”
