Will Rishi’s reshuffle steady the Tory ship?

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Rishi Sunak has partially rejigged his top team in a mini reshuffle, one he hopes will act as a shot in the arm for his beleaguered government, writes Mattie Brignal.

Sunak trod lightly. There were no sackings. Instead, he created four new departments and picked mostly serving ministers to head them. The Hound has a run-down of all the comings and goings.

Sunak’s biggest revamp was breaking up the department for Business, Energy, Innovation and Science into three — a Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, a Department for Business and Trade and a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.

The PM is adamant that innovation is the key to growth, and this tinkering with the Whitehall machinery chimes with the promise he made when he took office to make Britain a “science and technology superpower”.

Grant “spreadsheet” Shapps, the former business secretary, has been picked to take on the energy brief. Making energy security a priority is long overdue. It was Theresa May who merged the Department for Energy and Climate Change with the Business Department in 2016. The last 12 months have underlined what a bad idea this was.

Creating a new department is one thing, getting it to deliver government objectives is another. Still, the energy decision is a step in the right direction.

One of Sunak’s most sensitive appointments was Greg Hands, a loyal supporter and former trade minister, to Tory party chairman after Nadhim Zahawi was sacked over his tax affairs.

Will Greg be a safe pair of hands? That’s Sunak’s hope. He has 12 years of ministerial experience, and is a much less controversial appointment than Kemi Badenoch, for instance, might have been. (Sunak promoted grassroots favourite Badenoch to Secretary of State for Business and Trade – an apparent olive branch to his party’s Right).

Hands has a tough gig. His first task is to prepare the party for local elections in May. If the polls hold, expect a bloodbath for the Tories. The latest polling by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found Labour has a 26-point lead, the biggest since Sunak entered No 10.  

Today’s revamp is being framed by Sunak as a reset after months of scandals, strikes and cost-of-living woes. What it won’t do is temper the debate raging in Tory ranks over fiscal policy. Calls for tax cuts from the backbenches are growing, and the tax-slashing heroine Liz Truss has risen from the ashes, vowing to continue her crusade. (The Hound even managed to get hold of bonus material from Truss’s exclusive comeback interview…)

Still, Sunak’s shake-up has stamped his mark on government. He will hope, against the odds, that it helps steady the listing Tory ship.

One loose thread remains, however: Dominic Raab. The deputy PM is under investigation over claims he bullied staff, and Sunak suggested today that he would fire Raab if it’s found he did. The impression that today’s reshuffle has cemented Sunak’s authority will evaporate if he’s forced into another one in a few weeks’ time.

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