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Grant Shapps to head up brand new 'Energy Security' department

The Jewish cabinet minister has been asked to head up a brand new Whitehall department

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LONDON, ENGLAND - JUNE 13: Business Secretary Grant Shapps addresses delegates at the London Tech Week conference at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre on June 13, 2023 in London, England. A series of politicians and guest speakers have addressed London Tech Week, which touts itself as a "global celebration of tech, uniting the most innovative thinkers and talent of tomorrow." (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Grant Shapps has been appointed to the brand new job of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero - his third cabinet post since the 2019 election.

As part of today's cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is splitting the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy, which Shapps currently leads, and instead he will be given responsibility for Britain's energy security.

Shapps, who is Jewish, has served as Business Secretary since Rishi Sunak became prime minister in November last year. He was previously Home Secretary for six days in the final week of Liz Truss's short-lived premiership, and was Transport Secretary under Boris Johnson.

Fellow Jewish MP Lucy Frazer has been appointed Secretary of State for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

Frazer, who is a KC, grew up in Leeds where she was a member of BBYO in her youth. In her maiden speech in Parliament in 2015, she said of her Jewish family: "My great-grandparents fled to this country with nothing, with no possessions and no money, not even speaking the language, and Britain gave them a home. It gave them hope and it gave them a future."

Today's reshuffle is part of a broader re-organisation of Whitehall pledged by Sunak during the Tory leadership election campaign in the summer.

After the split of Shapps's former department, Kemi Badenoch is heading up the brand new Department for Business and Trade.

Sunak has also created a new Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and that is being led by Michelle Donelan MP.

Grant Shapps had become the first Jewish home secretary in nearly 30 years following Suella Braverman’s resignation from Liz Truss’s government last year, but he was moved from the post by the new prime minister, who controversially decided to reappoint Braverman.

Shapps had joined the ranks of several other British Jews to serve as Home Secretary, after previously serving as Transport Secretary under Boris Johnson and Tory party chairman under David Cameron, before being fired after allegations of him using alter egos to shape his online image.

A former BBYO president, Shapps told the JC in a 2010 interview, that he was "totally Jewish" saying: "I don't eat pork, we only buy kosher meat and we don't mix meat and milk. I like being Jewish and I married a Jewish girl. It's like a way of life and it's good to be able to instil some of that sense of being in your kids."

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