Two Indian-origin MPs get promoted in Theresa May’s government reshuffle

LONDON: Two 37-year-old British Indian MPs have moved from the backbenches to junior ministerial positions in Theresa May’s government reshuffle. Suella Fernandes and Rishi Sunak are the same age and were both elected in 2015. But the reshuffle has come under fire for not making the Cabinet diverse enough.
“It is disappointing that there are no new Asian members in the Cabinet and the number has in effect gone done.The Cabinet is not as representative of Britain as it should be,” said Operation Black Vote director Simon Woolley. “I am very pleased that the number of Asian MPs with ministerial positions has increased but I am waiting for the day that there is a Prime Minister of Britain of Indian or African descent.”
Ex-barrister Fernandes has been made parliamentary under-secretary of state at the Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) led by Brexit negotiator David Davis. The new role is a step up from her previous low-ranking position of parliamentary private secretary to HM treasury ministers.
Another Brexiteer and hedge fund millionaire, Sunak, the son-in-law of Infosys co-founder and billionaire N R Narayana Murthy, has been appointed as parliamentary under-secretary of state at the new ministry of housing.
Fernandes’s parents immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Kenya and Mauritius. She grew up in Wembley and studied law at Cambridge. As a backbencher she was head of the European Research Group (ERG), a group of Conservative MPs which supports Brexit and campaigned for the UK to leave the EU.
But her promotion has drawn separate criticism from the Opposition who view her as holding an extreme hard Brexit stance. She has campaigned for Britain to leave the EU Customs Union and the Single Market.
“This looks like yet another capitulation by the Prime Minister to the Brextremists," said Labour MP Alison McGovern, a supporter of the pro-EU group Open Britain. “Suella Fernandes is the second chair of the hard Brexit-supporting ERG to be appointed as a DExEU minister in the past seven months. The prime minister needs to know that the answer is not to keep ceding yet more influence to the hard Brexit fanatics in her party, but to get a grip and reverse her decision to leave the Single Market and Customs Union,” she added.
Sunak was previously a parliamentary private secretary in the department for business, energy and industrial strategy.
Born in the UK, Sunak’s grandparents moved from north India to East Africa and then to the UK. He was the first Indian-origin head boy at Winchester College and is an Oxford graduate. He was a Fulbright scholar at Stanford University where he met his wife Akshata.
Agra-born Alok Sharma. 50, has been given a sideways move to minister of state for employment. He was previously minister of state for housing and planning. “I’m delighted to continue the legacy of this government in overseeing record levels of employment and supporting people of all ages and backgrounds into work. This is a big role and I am grateful to the prime minister,” he said.
However, neither Sharma, Sunak, nor Fernandes will attend Cabinet. Since Priti Patel quit in November, the only Cabinet minister from an ethnic minority now is Pakistani-origin Sajid Javid, who got a beefed up role of secretary of state for housing, communities and local government in the reshuffle.
Dawn Butler MP, Labour’s shadow minister for women and equalities, said: “Theresa May’s government still doesn’t look enough like the country it claims to serve. Over a third of the frontbench were privately educated, there are still more men than women in the Cabinet and the Tories are still lagging behind on Black, Asian and minority ethnic representation in key positions.”