Andy Burnham’s first Labour cabinet: who’s in and who’s out?

Andy Burnham has appointed his first cabinet, with the new prime minister rewarding those who have been loyal to his takeover efforts. He had promised to pick his top team from all wings of the party in an effort to show he is trying to run a more inclusive administration. But at the same time, his decision to have a brutal clearout of Starmer allies resulted in many considered to be on the right of the party or close to the former prime minister losing their jobs. These are the key announcements so far:

The former defence secretary who quit the government over a lack of funding for the defence investment plan is the surprise appointment to the Treasury.

Healey, 66, is a steady and experienced force, having been an MP since 1997, and serving as a Treasury minister under Tony Blair.

The job had been first expected to go to Ed Miliband and then it was mooted for Shabana Mahmood. But one advantage of Healey is his longstanding history on Labour frontbenches for every faction of the party. He was a minister in the Blair-Brown years and a loyal member of the shadow cabinets of Miliband, Jeremy Corbyn and Starmer.

Healey grew up in Wakefield, studied political science at Cambridge University, and was a journalist, campaigns director at the Trades Union Congress and a disability rights campaigner before entering parliament.

Unshowy and not part of the usual Westminster dramas or scandals, it was a shock when he resigned his role under Starmer, in what would be one of the fatal blows for his premiership. In the job, he will be expected to push for a fuller funding settlement for the Ministry of Defence, which was denied to him under the Treasury of Rachel Reeves. His other major shared interest with Burnham is reindustrialisation.

His X bio describes him as “Husband and Dad. Proud Yorkshireman. Labour MP for Rawmarsh and Conisbrough and former secretary of state for defence”. He can now add chancellor to that list.

Mahmood will keep her role in Burnham’s cabinet after being appointed home secretary by Keir Starmer last year, and charged with driving through controversial immigration policies.

She is considered to be on the Blue Labour right of the party, which is socially conservative and tough on crime. She grew up in Small Heath in inner-city Birmingham in the 1980s and 90s, where her father kept a cricket bat behind the till of the family shop to fend off would-be robbers. After going to Oxford University to study law, she worked as a barrister.

The 45-year-old is an MP in Birmingham and ran Labour’s election campaign in 2024, before a stint as justice secretary overseeing an early release programme to ease overcrowding. She is viewed as steely and decisive.

A cabinet colleague told the Guardian earlier this year that she “never wastes a word” in meetings, and last year warned that the government was still caught up in an opposition mindset and preoccupied with taking on the left instead of speaking to the concerns of the country more widely. She has also been a leading advocate for the UK to take a more pro-Palestinian stance, including on statehood.

Miliband is a great survivor in the Labour party – almost as much so as Andy Burnham. A former cabinet minister under Gordon Brown, he led Labour to an election defeat in 2015 before serving in the shadow cabinet of Keir Starmer.

He was a leading contender to be chancellor but there were fears his positioning on the soft left and as a firm defender of Britain’s net zero commitments would spook the financial markets. Having once made a speech pitching some companies as producers and others as predators, he is not a favourite politician of big business.

Born in north London in a political family, his father was a Marxist academic. He studied PPE at Oxford University and worked mostly in politics and research before joining his older brother, David, in the House of Commons as a Labour MP. They became the first brothers to both serve around the cabinet table since before the second world war, and their sibling relationship was put to the test when Ed beat David in the leadership contest to succeed Brown with the support of the trade union vote.

As Labour leader, he led in the polls for many months against David Cameron and identified ahead of his time the public mood on the cost of living but was pilloried by some of the rightwing media as gaffe-prone and somewhat awkward. In Starmer’s cabinet he was viewed as one of the most successful cabinet ministers at driving through his priorities, including Great British Energy, and blocking more drilling in the North Sea – a policy expected to be partially overturned by Burnham.

As foreign secretary, he will be expected to take international matters off Burnham’s hands as much as possible, take a more pro-Gaza stance and potentially set a path to restoring Britain’s aid commitments to 0.7% of national income. He replaces Yvette Cooper.

Chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, first secretary of state and Cabinet Office minister

Haigh became a linchpin of Burnham’s byelection operation, so it is no surprise she is now his chief organiser in government and effectively his deputy as first secretary of state. As the most senior Cabinet Office minister, she will coordinate delivery across the government and oversee any changes to Whitehall.

It marks a return to cabinet for the 38-year-old Haigh, who was sacked by Keir Starmer as transport secretary for not having told him fully about a fraud conviction over a missing mobile phone when she was in her 20s.

She grew up in Sheffield and studied politics and government at LSE, then Nottingham University, before working in parliament, for Unite and later at the insurer Aviva. It was during her time at that company where she got in hot water over the phone, having reported it stolen but failed to update the police when it was found. She pleaded guilty to fraud, but it did not stop her political career.

Elected in 2015, she was one of 36 Labour MPs to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for the Labour leadership that year and was given a frontbench role when he made her a shadow Cabinet Office minister at age 28.

The MP for Sheffield Heeley rose through the junior ministerial ranks and was one of a handful of Corbyn’s frontbench to be appointed to Keir Starmer’s first cabinet when he took over. She became the shadow Northern Ireland secretary.

Known for engaging communication style, she retained her frontbench role even as Starmer moved his party to the right. As transport secretary, she oversaw the nationalisation of railways legislation until she was returned to the backbenches. She replaces Darren Jones.

Reeves had always wanted the job of chancellor and was proud to be the UK’s first female holder of the office. She had worked hard to instil ironclad fiscal discipline on Labour, sticking broadly to her self-imposed fiscal rules and enforcing spending curbs across departments.