Kelly Tolhurst has been appointed as minister for schools and childhood at the Department for Education, and has been put in charge of policy on academic selection.
The new brief means she will oversee some of the responsibilities held by former schools and children’s ministers. Her brief includes “strategy for schools, including standards and selection”. Selection was not mentioned in the briefs of her recent predecessors.
It comes after Liz Truss pledged during her leadership campaign to lift the ban on new grammar schools. However, it is not yet clear whether she will do so before the next election, with parliamentary time scarce.
It means four DfE ministers now have some level of responsibility for schools policy.
