The new Prime Minister Liz Truss has appointed the MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed Anne-Marie Trevelyan as the new Transport Secretary.
Before being appointed to the transport department, Ms Trevelyan Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade and had previously been the “UK International Champion on Adaptation and Resilience” for the COP26 Presidency.
She was Minister of State (Minister for Energy, Clean Growth and Climate Change) at the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from January 2021 to September 2021.
She was the Secretary of State for International Development from February to September 2020. She was Minister of State for the Armed Forces from 17 December 2019 to 13 February 2020, and Minister for Defence Procurement from 27 July 2019 to 16 December 2019.
The new Transport Secretary was first elected as MP for the Berwick-upon-Tweed constituency at the 2015 general election.
A chartered accountant by trade, she sat on the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee from July 2015 to May 2017 and December 2018 to July 2019. She has previously served as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for Defence. As an MP, she has campaigned with colleagues for greater autism awareness and has focused on the Armed Forces Covenant.
Parliament’s website says her wider interests involve spending time with her family, “making the most of the incredible landscape her vast and varied constituency affords” and putting her passion for singing to good use by taking part in Singing for Syrians concerts in Westminster.
Sacked predecessor Grant Shapps, who supported Ms Truss’s rival Rishi Sunak in the leadership election, tweeted on his departure, “It has been a privilege to serve as Transport Secretary; a job I loved. Now I look forward to being a strong, independent voice on the backbenches, developing policies that will further the Conservative cause and the interests of my constituents in Welwyn Hatfield.”
During the leadership election, the new Prime Minister talked about considering abolishing speed limits on motorways and abandoning smart motorways.
(Picture – Parliament website)
