In September 2021, Mike was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for International Trade, with responsibility for the UK’s export policy.
Mike’s responsibilities include export promotion across all sectors; UK Export Finance; the Trade Envoy programme; as well as world events such as trade missions and trade shows. He also supports the Secretary of State on export strategy, supporting small and medium sized businesses to export, and the Department for International Trade’s GREAT campaign.
He was also appointed Minister for Equalities, to support the work of the Minister for Women and Equalities (Rt Hon Liz Truss MP) and Minister of State for Equalities (Kemi Badenoch MP) on policy related to women, sexual orientation, transgender equality and equalities legislation.
Mike's role as a Government Minister
Ministers are the MPs and members of the House of Lords who are in the Government. They are appointed by the Prime Minister and each given a specific area of government policy to oversee.
Ministers speak on behalf of the Government from the frontbenches during parliamentary debates and must answer questions put to them by other MPs or members of the House of Lords.
Restrictions
As a Minister, MPs are not able to sign EDMs, speak or apply for debates, or table oral parliamentary questions.
You can read more about the work of Government Ministers in this Institute for Government explainer, which you can find here: Government ministers | The Institute for Government.