Jonathan Reynolds defended the make-up of the Cabinet, which has a majority of members based in the north of England. Asked if there was a risk of a north-south divide, he told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “No, there isn’t.
“I don’t want to get touchy about it, but I can’t remember previous occasions where people have objected to too many people from a different part of the country being in there.” Mr Reynolds, MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in Greater Manchester, said: “I think there’s the same number of cabinet ministers from Greater Manchester there was at the start of this Labour government in 2024.
“The Prime Minister has changed, but the the rest of the Cabinet is broadly the same in terms of those names. So I don’t accept a bias for any part of the country. I do accept very much that this is a Prime Minister determined to make the economy work, the country work, for every single part of the UK.”