Guildford’s MP Moved From Ministerial Role

Published on: 5 Sep, 2012
Updated on: 7 Sep, 2012

Guildford MP Anne Milton

Guildford’s MP Anne Milton has been moved from her role as Minister for Public Health to become a Lords Commissioner in the government whip’s office. The move is part of the government reshuffle.

She is now one of the team of five supporting the new Government Chief Whip (the Rt Hon Andrew Mitchell MP).

Ms Milton, an ex nurse, was appointed to the ministerial role in 2010, following the last general election.

Anne said, “I am delighted to be asked to serve in the Whips Office. It is always good to move on to something new and I relish the challenge of this new role.”

“Having trained as a nurse and worked in the National Health Service for 25 years, it has been a particular pleasure and a fantastic opportunity to be Minister for Public Health but a change is a breath of fresh air.”

In a series of surprising decisions all but one of the Health Department’s team has been changed.

Ms Milton’s move is likely to find favour with ‘pro-choice’ abortion campaigners although any satisfaction they might feel will probably be tempered by the appointment of Jeremy Hunt, Godalming’s MP, as Secretary of State for Health.

According to Wikipedia,”Some of the … Whips are nominally a Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury though these are all members of the House of Commons. This led to the Government frontbench in the Commons being known as the Treasury Bench. However, since the Whips no longer have any effective ministerial role in the Treasury, they are usually not listed as Treasury ministers.”