Bridget Phillipson, new Education Secretary

Following the election, changes are now taking place at the Department for Education.

Bridget Phillipson has been appointed Secretary of State for Education. Born in Gateshead in 1983 Ms Phillipson has been an MP since 2010. She served as an opposition whip for her first 10 years in Parliament, before being promoted to the shadow cabinet in April 2020 as shadow Chief Secretary to the treasury and then as shadow Secretary of State for Education in 2021.

She attended state schools and is Oxbridge-educated. She has also argued for greater certainty for school budgets and is reported as saying in the past “long-term outcomes are better delivered when they can be planned on a longer-term basis—more than one financial year at a time”.

Jacqui Smith has joined Bridget Phillipson’s ministerial team at the Department for Education.  Elected as the MP for Redditch in 1997, Smith was an education minister from 1999 to 2001 and from 2005 to 2006, before serving a year as chief whip and then two years as home secretary before losing her seat in 2010.  Ms Smith will be given a peerage and will be the education team’s minister in the House of Lords.

The new government will focus on:

• Giving all children the best start in their early years

• Delivering breakfast clubs and excellent maths teaching in every primary school

• Expanding speech and language support

• More teachers, stronger training for staff and leaders alike

• A comprehensive review of curriculum and assessment

• A reformed Ofsted alongside regional improvement teams in the Department

• Professional careers advisors and compulsory work experience

• A new skills landscape and reforms to the existing Levy

• Improving mental health support for all children.