Who is Health Secretary Steve Barclay?
STEVE BARCLAY has been re-instated as Health Secretary by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
He has taken over from Therese Coffey, who held the role under Liz Truss for just seven weeks.
Who is Steve Barclay?
Steve has been the MP for North East Cambridge since May 2010.
Born on May 3, 1972, he grew up in Lancashire before joining the Army and attending Sandhurst.
He served as a Second Lieutenant with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers for five months.
After his short military career he read history at Cambridge University before training as a lawyer and going on to a career in The City.
He joined the Conservative Party in 1994 after leaving Cambridge and was twice an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate, contesting Manchester Blackley in 1997 and Lancaster & Wyre in 2001.
In 2007 he became Organiser of the Carlton Political Dinner which raises funds for the Conservative Party’s target seats.
Steve was selected in January 2008 to replace outgoing North East Cambridgeshire MP, Malcolm Moss, and was voted at the 2010 general election with a majority of 16,425.
After getting to parliament he was elected by fellow MPs to become a member of the Public Accounts Committee.
Steve is married to Karen and they have two children.
Their daughter was born in 2010 and they also have a son.
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What does a Health Secretary do?
The Health Secretary is responsible for the work of the Department of Health and Social Care.
This includes having overall financial control of NHS delivery and performance, as well as overseeing social care policies.
The Health Secretary will also have responsibility over mental health services and championing patient safety.
The position of Health Secretary is eighth in the ministerial ranking.
Between 1988 and 2018 the position was called "The Secretary of State for Health", however Prime Minister, Theresa May, added "and Social Care" to the title in the 2018 British Cabinet re-shuffle.
What else has Steve Barclay done?
Steve was appointed Brexit Secretary in 2018 after Michael Gove turned the job down.
Theresa May asked Leave-voting Barclay to take over from Dominic Raab as a leadership crisis swirled around her.
The role involved preparing Britain for our EU exit.
Steve was "the Prime Minster's choice for the job", according to her representatives, but they declined to say whether or not he was her first choice for the role.
Prior to that Barclay was assistant Government whip from 2015-2016, before becoming Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury whip.
In 2017 he worked as Economic Secretary to the Treasury from 2017-2018, before briefly holding the title of Minister of State (Minister for Health).
In 2020 he became Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Boris Johnson.
He then had roles as Minister for the Cabinet Office, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the Downing Street chief of staff.
In July 2022, he was appointed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, succeeding Sajid Javid.
After Liz Truss became Prime Minister in September 2022, Therese Coffey took over the role of Health Secretary, however it wasn't long before Barclay held the position again.
New PM Rishi Sunak re-instated Steve to the post on October 25, 2022.
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