Kemi Badenoch reshuffles Conservative shadow cabinet ahead of party conference

Sir Mel Stride and Dame Priti Patel have left the shadow cabinet as part of a significant reshuffle of the Conservative top team by leader Kemi Badenoch.

Andrew Griffith will replace Sir Mel as shadow chancellor, while Tom Tugendhat will take the place of Dame Priti as shadow foreign secretary.

Badenoch is forming a new shadow cabinet before the party's conference in October.

With most polls putting the Conservatives in third place, lagging behind Labour and Reform UK, the Tory leader will be hoping a refreshed shadow cabinet will help boost her party's popularity.

Claire Coutinho, previously the shadow energy secretary, after her maternity leave will replace Griffith as shadow business secretary and act as his deputy.

Badenoch said that as shadow chancellor, Sir Mel had helped the party rebuild economic credibility and become an effective opposition.

A senior Conservative source said: "Kemi is changing the way the Conservative Party approaches economic policy and creating a new economic leadership team for the next phase, focused on growth, higher living standards and fiscal credibility."

Sir Mel, who was appointed to the role following Badenoch's leadership election in 2024, described his time in post as a "great honour".

New shadow chancellor Griffith said the Tories will deliver "an economic revolution" with lower taxes, Britain drilling again to bring energy costs down, slashing red tape and Labour's Employment Rights Act.

"The Conservatives will always back the risk-takers and wealth creators who deliver growth, investment and jobs," he said.

The Tory source described Griffith as a "no-nonsense, pro-growth shadow chancellor with real business experience".

Before he became MP for Arundel and South Downs in 2019, he served as a top executive at Sky and as chairman of Just Eat.

As a Treasury minister, Griffiths defended Liz Truss' 2022 mini-Budget.

Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson described Griffith as "a key architect of Liz Truss's disastrous mini-Budget" and said the shadow cabinet featured politicians "who hammered family finances and left our public services crumbling".

That message was echoed by other parties. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Daisy Cooper said: "His appointment to shadow chancellor shows they're happy to forfeit any claim to economic credibility in their race to the bottom with Reform UK."

Reform UK shadow chancellor Robert Jenrick said: "They haven't changed and still aren't sorry for the damage they inflicted on our country."

Dame Priti, who had been shadow foreign secretary since 2024, will return to the backbenches and will take on a new international role strengthening the Tories relationship with sister parties and centre-right movements abroad.

Badenoch has selected Damian Hinds as the new shadow health and social care secretary after Stuart Andrew confirmed he will be returning to the backbenches.

Katie Lam has been named as the new housing secretary, after Sir James Cleverly quit the front bench, announcing he wants to run for London mayor.

Badenoch's reshuffle is intended to bring solutions to a number of problems.

First, she wants to retire those members of her top team that have had a relatively low profile, or who have not been delivering sufficient blows to both Labour and Reform UK.

Badenoch paid a warm tribute to Sir Mel but some recent polls suggested that Reform UK were more trusted on the economy than the Conservatives.

And that is something Kemi Badenoch felt needed to change.

Second, while familiar faces like Dame Priti were useful to have in the top team as they brought high-level government experience, they might also remind voters of the party they decisively rejected in 2024.

There has been a changing of the old guard, and Badenoch is now focusing on who can take the Conservatives into the next election - faced as she is by a new Labour leader and cabinet.

Third, she wants to focus on issues where Labour is perceived to be vulnerable.

One such area is defence spending and national security.

So as shadow foreign secretary she appointed Tom Tugendhat - a former security minister and current army reservist who served in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will work as part of a team with the shadow defence secretary.

Some opinion polls rate the economy as the most important issue for voters, above asylum and immigration, and again the Tory leader believes the government is vulnerable here, with sluggish growth.

So she has announced a new Conservative economic unit headed by Griffith, with his extensive business experience.

Coutinho as his deputy is seen as a rising Conservative star who has performed well in her previous role shadowing the former energy secretary Ed Miliband in the Commons, and as a potential future chancellor if the Conservatives were ever to recover electorally.

But the Tory leader has also included the former Conservative chairman and City Minister Richard Fuller in the unit, concentrating on fiscal responsibility and tax.

He will be deployed as an attack dog if - as she believes he will – the chancellor raises taxes in the Budget.

But the role will also underline that the Conservative leader is serious about making her sums add up, in contrast to her characterisation of Reform UK's plans as ill-thought out.

The question now though is whether Badenoch will change her own approach to political leadership.

While some of her top team may be seen as lacklustre, how much opportunity did they get to shine?

She tends to make the big announcements and is ubiquitous on the media.

If the Conservatives are to convince voters they are once again a government in waiting then the public will have to see that there is breadth and depth in the team that is shadowing current ministers.