Jonathan Gullis is the new schools minister, it has been confirmed.
The MP for Stoke-on-Trent North was appointed as a junior minister at the Department for Education last week.
Although official portfolios have not formally been announced by the DfE, Gullis has updated his LinkedIn profile to state he is the minister for school standards.
This was confirmed by the department this evening. He is the third schools minister to serve in three months
Gullis is a keen supporter of grammar schools and wants the ban lifted on new selective institutions.
His appointment to the schools brief is the clearest signal yet that new prime minister Liz Truss plans to attempt to reverse the ban, which would require primary legislation.
Gullis is a parliamentary undersecretary of state, the most junior rank for departmental ministers. He is understood to be the first minister of that rank to hold the schools brief since at least the late 1980s.
His recent predecessors have all been ministers of state, a rank above.
It is not clear what role Kelly Tolhurst, the department’s only current minister of state, will hold, but Gullis’s appointment to the schools bill suggests she may take on the children and families brief.
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