Housing minister Stuart Andrew, MP for Pudsey, Horsforth & Aireborough, submitted his letter of resignation at noon today, just 21 weeks into the job.
Business minister Lee Rowley’s letter – a joint resignation along with levelling up minister Neil O'Brien, culture minister Julia Lopez, education minister Alex Burghart and local government minister Kemi Badenoch – came soon after at 2.24pm.
As 3pm on Wednesday 6th July, 27 ministers and parliamentary private secretaries have resigned in the past 24 hours.
Having retained the support of government colleagues in a confidence vote last month, the prime minister has faced a turning tide, starting with the resignations of chancellor Rishi Sunak and health secretary Sajid Javid yesterday evening. They had stood by him through his numerous previous inaccurate recollections of facts, but the latest mis-recollections – lies, as many are saying – about the Chris Pincher affair, proved too much. It appears, Javid said, that the prime minister had fed a junior minister a pack of lies and sent him into television studios on Tuesday morning to repeat them, not knowing that he had been set up. That minister, Will Quince, resigned first thing the next day.
Lee Rowley’s departure means that the Construction Industry Leadership Council will have two new co-chairs when it next meets. Rowley had been co-chair on the government since September 2021, although it is not known how many meetings he actually attended. Mace chief executive took over last month as industry side co-chair from Tideway’s Andy Mitchell last month.
All eyes are now on Michael Gove, the levelling up secretary, who has been noticeable by his silence in the past 24 hours...
Got a story? Email news@theconstructionindex.co.uk
