Four in 10 Conservative MPs are now on the party’s frontbench after the latest appointments by Rishi Sunak from the much-reduced Tory presence at Westminster. New faces include Danny Kruger, the co-chair of the rightwing New Conservatives group, who is now a shadow defence minister, and Alicia Kearns, the former Commons foreign affairs committee chair, who has become a shadow Foreign Office minister. About 10 of those appointed on Friday are doing more than one job. Paul Holmes, a former assistant government whip, has been given three jobs, shadowing the Foreign Office and the Northern Ireland Office, while also acting as a Tory whip. Andrew Bowie, a former junior minister, is now a shadow energy security and net zero minister, in addition to being the shadow veterans minister. Saqib Bhatti will hold a junior shadow role for science and technology and one for health and social care, while Gareth Bacon will do the same for a junior justice brief and for business and trade. The former prime minister made the additions on Friday after the announcement of his temporary shadow cabinet last week. The new appointments mean that there are 51 MPs on the Conservative frontbench, amounting to 42% of the total parliamentary party. It was reduced to 121 MPs after 175 Tories from the previous parliament failed to win seats in the general election earlier this month. The extent to which the Conservatives have been squeezed was illustrated over the past 48 hours. Edward Argar, a former cabinet minister, responded for his party to a government statement on prisoner releases as the shadow to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, and was on his feet again on Friday morning responding to a government statement on the Covid-19 inquiry interim module report. In the Lords, Earl Howe has been made shadow deputy leader of the house, meaning that the former minister will have been on the Conservative frontbench for 33 years without a break. The party said on Friday that the appointments, including that of the interim shadow cabinet last week, “now mean that the Conservative party stands fully ready to provide the opposition the public deserves to this new Labour government”. “This interim frontbench continues to draw upon the wealth of existing expertise in the Conservative party from its MPs’ personal and professional backgrounds, recognising the talent in our parliamentary party,” it added.
While the frontbench is likely to change when a new leader takes over from Sunak, it remains unclear when that will happen after senior Tories failed to reach agreement about a timetable for their leadership contest, with a big split existing between key figures in the party. It means no decision will be made on selecting a new leader until at least next week, when the executive of the 1922 Committee of backbenchers will meet again.