Grant Shapps replaced as transport secretary

Shapps, who ran for leadership of the Conservative Party and ultimately backed former chancellor Rishi Sunak for the top role, will return to the backbenches following Liz Truss’s appointment as prime minister on Tuesday (6 September).

"It has been a privilege to serve as transport secretary; a job I loved," tweeted Shapps. "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."

Trevelyan, who is MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed, will attend Truss’s first cabinet meeting on Wednesday (7 September) ahead of the new prime minister’s first Prime Minister’s Questions at lunchtime.

Other major appointments to the Truss cabinet include Therese Coffey, who becomes health secretary and deputy prime minister; Kwasi Kwarteng, who has been appointed chancellor; James Cleverly, foreign secretary; and Suella Braverman, home secretary.

Shapps was appointed transport secretary in July 2019; he came in for staunch criticism from across the travel sector during the pandemic for seemingly being unable to fight travel’s corner in Whitehall, as well as a series of off-the-cuff remarks interpreted as displaying a lack of deeper understanding of travel.

He headed up the Global Travel Taskforce, as well as a short-lived Atlantic Taskforce, and will be remembered chiefly for his 5pm tweets on Thursdays revealing which travel corridors were to be added and/or axed in a given week, or which country’s traffic lights status would change – much to travel’s frustration and bafflement.