Kemi Badenoch makes first appointment to shadow cabinet

Rebecca Harris has been appointed the Conservative Party's chief whip as Kemi Badenoch begins the process of assembling her new shadow cabinet.

Badenoch was confirmed as the party's new leader on Saturday after defeating Robert Jenrick, and has made Harris, the MP for Castle Point in Essex, her first appointment.

The job of chief whip is to maintain party discipline and try to ensure MPs vote as the leadership would like them to.

The process of appointments will begin in earnest on Monday, the BBC understands, with formal announcements of who will be in Kemi Badenoch’s senior team expected on Tuesday.

Badenoch, whose victory made her the first black woman to lead a major political party in the UK, said on Sunday that she wanted to show the Conservative party was united with a meritocratically selected front bench.

In a speech after the result was announced, the 44-year-old also hinted Jenrick may be offered a senior job, telling him “you have a key role in our party for years to come”.

Badenoch, who became an MP in 2017 after a career in banking and IT, has also said she would offer jobs to all of the Tories who launched leadership bids in July.

But shadow home secretary James Cleverly, who came third in the race, has ruled himself out.

Badenoch told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme that the Conservatives had "got a lot of things wrong" ahead of their election defeat in July, including on immigration and tax, but she refused to give a "post-mortem" of her predecessors.

In regards to the Partygate scandal, she said then-prime minister Boris Johnson had walked into "a trap" and that she thought it had been "overblown.

Badenoch said her focus for the Tories was on rebuilding trust, adding the "public didn't trust us for a whole bunch of reasons - not keeping promises but looking disunited".

Harris's predecessor Stuart Andrew, the MP for Daventry who was appointed chief whip in July, said in a post on X it had been “an honour and a privilege to serve as the Conservative Party Chief Whip”.

“Rebecca Harris is a great friend and a brilliant Whip,” he said. “I wish her all the best in the role.”

Harris was first elected as a Conservative MP for Castle Point in 2010 at the general election, which the Tories won under the leadership of David Cameron.

She was the assistant whip to the Treasury from June 2017 to January 2018, and Lord Commissioner to the Treasury between January 2018 and July 2022.

In 2022, she became the first woman to hold the role of Comptroller of the Royal Household since it was created in 1399, which saw her walk in front of Queen Elizabeth II's coffin.

After this year's election defeat, she was appointed deputy chief whip by interim Tory leader Rishi Sunak.

Shadow cabinet roles are filled by members of the main opposition party in Westminster, to oppose the ministers holding the corresponding government positions.