Three first-time London MPs have been appointed ministers as at least 21 of the capital’s newly elected Labour politicians sit on the government frontbenches.
Sir Keir Starmer selected Sarah Sackman as Solicitor General less than a week after she won Finchley and Golders Green from the Tories.
Queen’s Park and Maida Vale MP Georgia Gould and Peckham MP Miatta Fahnbulleh were also elevated to junior minister roles in the Cabinet Office and Energy Department respectively.
It is extremely unusual for MPs with no previous experience in Parliament to immediately be given government jobs, but the new Prime Minister boosted five straight into his frontbench.
Former Royal Marine Colonel Alistair Carns, the MP for Birmingham Selly Oak, became minister for veterans and Midlothian MP Kirsty McNeill, a charity executive and former adviser to Gordon Brown, is now also a junior minister in the Scotland Office.
Mr Carns said: “I am deeply honoured to accept Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s offer to serve as the new Minister for Veterans Affairs. To our veterans, you have sacrificed so much for our nation, and stood and fought with courage, often in the face of the unimaginable, it is my privilege to now to stand for you.”
However he will not attend cabinet as his Tory predecessor Johnny Mercer did under Rishi Sunak’s government.
Labour’s Armed Forced Minister Luke Pollard defended the apparent demotion of the role on Wednesday. He told LBC: “John Healey, the Defence Secretary, will be representing veterans around the Cabinet table.
“Having spoken to John at length about this, I know that he is determined that we provide better support for our veterans. The language around veterans has been broadly right for many years.
“The problem has been about delivery. So what we want to do is to make sure that the delivery to support our veterans is improved.
“And that means making sure that we can get into the detail of what needs to be supported...The fact that we have more veterans serving on Labour benches than we have done for decades, I think is testament to just how important we’re taking veterans.”
Three cabinet minister - Health Secretary Wes Streeting, Foreign Secretary David Lammy and Environment Secretary Steve Reed - represent constituencies in the capital and 14 other ministerial roles have so far been filled by London MPs.
Sir Keir himself is also a London MP, representing Holborn and St Pancras.
But Emily Thornberry, who was reelected in Islington South with a majority of more than 15,000 votes, was not appointed Attorney General, despite having held the role in opposition for three years.
Appointments are yet to be competed but it is understood she will have no ministerial role in the new government.
Ms Thornberry said she was “very sorry and surprised” not to be serving in government.
But she added that her “personal disappointment” does not “detract from the amazing and historic victory that all of us in the Labour movement worked together to win last week”.
While some long time MPs may be irked by not being selected for government jobs as first timers take their places on the frontbench, this is unlikely to be a concern for the Prime Minister after he won massive majority.
Jess Phillips was among those who made a return to the Labour frontbench being selected as a junior minister in the Home Office.
She had previously been shadow domestic violence minister. However she resigned in November last year to vote for a Gaza ceasefire in Parliament.
