Jacob Young has been named levelling up minister, following the resignation of Dehenna Davison.
The 30-year-old became MP for Redcar in 2019, and was previously an assistant government whip.
Prior to that Young was made a parliamentary private secretary at the Department for Housing, later the Department for Levelling Up, in 2020 but resigned in July 2022 in protest at Boris Johnson continuing to remain as prime minister.
He is a practicing Christian and describes himself as “socially liberal” and a “Thatcherite”.
He is the fourth person to hold the levelling up minister post since it was established two years ago by Johnson. Previous incumbents were Davison, Lia Nici and Neil O’Brien.
Davison, who has served as levelling up minister for a little over a year, having been appointed on 8 September 2022, resigned yesterday as levelling up minister, owing to chronic migraines.
The Bishop Auckland MP said in a resignation letter to Rishi Sunak that the condition “has had a great impact on my ability to carry out the role”.
Davison, also 30, was elected to her County Durham seat in 2019. In November, after three years, she announced that she would stand down at the next election to focus on a “life outside politics – mainly my family”.
In a letter to the prime minister, Davison wrote that she wished to “leave my role as levelling up minister and to step back fully from government”.
“Unfortunately, for some time now I have been battling with chronic migraine, which has had a great impact on my ability to carry out the role.”
She added: “Some days I’m fine, but on others it is difficult, if not impossible, to keep up with the demands of ministerial life – and the timing of such days is never predictable.”
Davison went on to praise the government’s track record of levelling up the country, pointing to the devolution deals, freeports and the allocation of the levelling up funds.
She wrote: “I don’t feel it is right to continue in the role. At such a critical time for levelling up, I believe people of communities like mine, and across the county, deserve a minister who can give the job the energy it needs. I regret I no longer can.”
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