(Bloomberg) -- Angela Rayner, Britain’s new deputy prime minister, has long been expected to be a key power broker in the incoming Labour government. But Rayner’s allies say she has had a slow start in the early sprint for power in Keir Starmer’s administration.
The union-backed deputy prime minister appears to have missed some early chances at power, ceding parts of her large policy portfolio to Cabinet colleagues, her supporters said, speaking on the condition on anonymity to discuss internal government matters. She has, for instance, so far failed to establish her own power base in Downing Street, with a restored Office of the Deputy Prime minister having yet to materialize.
Rayner has also been passed over for responsibility for the women and equalities brief, her allies said, an extra role which would have made her the standard-bearer for hot-button identity issues. Unbeknownst to Rayner, she had been lined up to take the role by Sue Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff, according to people familiar with the matter. Gray instead decided to give the area to Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary.
The planned Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, an idea reported by Bloomberg in March, would provide Rayner with a Downing Street base similar to predecessors like John Prescott and Nick Clegg. The office hasn’t yet been established, according to people familiar with the matter, and Rayner is currently working out of the Housing Ministry.
A spokesperson for Rayner declined to comment.
A Downing Street official denied that Rayner was passed over for anything, saying that women and equalities better aligned with the education secretary’s remit on opportunities. The person pointed to the deputy prime minister’s meeting with metro mayors in Downing Street, which she co-hosted with Starmer, and to her continued role in leading planning reform as evidence she’s shaping the agenda.
Rayner has clearly secured a central role in the new Labour government, holding a post whose occupant often stands in for the prime minister. One person close to Rayner rejected the suggestion that she has had a slower start than her colleagues, arguing that she has been busy preparing to launch the National Planning Policy Framework consultation before Parliament breaks for summer recess later this month.
Rayner is a fascinating player at the heart of the Starmer government — the independently elected deputy leader of the Labour Party, with close trade union links. She and Starmer had a rocky start, with the Labour leader attempting to remove her in 2021, following the party’s defeat in an election for an open seat in the northeast England constituency of Hartlepool.
Starmer failed to remove her, given Rayner’s separate mandate, and she instead emerged with an enlarged policy portfolio. She currently oversees a sprawling brief encompassing housebuilding and a controversial workers’ rights overhaul, as well as oversight for devolving powers to regional and local governments.
But in Labour’s first week of government, it was Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves who made reforms of the country’s planning system the centerpiece of a solo speech on plans to stimulate growth. Planning is a policy area that falls under Rayner’s remit as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government.
Meanwhile, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds has been given the lead on employment rights legislation, even though the so-called New Deal for Working People is one of her pet projects. Matthew Pennycook, the housing minister who reports to Rayner, has taken on an empowered role leading on the housebuilding agenda and will be a rare junior minister with his own special advisers.
The person close to Rayner said that the deputy prime minister was pleased to have Reeves’s support on planning, noting that her Conservative predecessor, Michael Gove, struggled to push changes past the Treasury and the prime minister. It was always the expectation that Reynolds would lead on the employment rights’ legislation and the pair have had a good working relationship, the person said.
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