Starmer names former Labour leadership contender Lisa Nandy as new DCMS chief
Nandy, whose constituency is home to the Tote Group, takes on department responsible for gambling with specific junior minister yet to be named
Sir Keir Starmer has named former Labour leadership contender Lisa Nandy as his new secretary of state at the Department of for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS).
With Starmer taking the keys to 10 Downing Street after a Labour landslide at the general election last week, the new prime minister has since set about building out his first cabinet.
Alongside rewards for long-term supporters Wes Streeting as health secretary and Angela Rayner as deputy prime minister, Starmer has parachuted Nandy into the DCMS brief, despite demoting her last year from his shadow cabinet.
Nandy, who came third in the leadership election in 2020 that Starmer eventually won, served as shadow foreign secretary in Starmer’s first shadow cabinet from September 2020 to November 2021.
She was then shifted to shadow levelling up secretary before being pushed out of the shadow cabinet and into a shadow minister for international development role in September 2023.
In taking on the DCMS brief, Nandy will replace loyal Starmerite Thangam Debbonaire after she lost her Bristol Central seat to the Greens.
From rugby league to Royal Opera, our cultural and sporting heritage runs through our towns, villages and cities and is one of our country’s greatest assets.
It is an unbelievable privilege to take on the role of Secretary of State @DCMS . The hard work begins today. https://t.co/YilC47p17C
— Lisa Nandy MP (@lisanandy) July 5, 2024
Gambling will come under the Wigan MP’s remit, with Starmer yet to hand out the specific sector brief within the department.
Barnsley South MP Stephanie Peacock will return to the House of Commons and is waiting to see if she will retain her shadow gambling minister brief from the new prime minister.
However, industry eyes will now turn to Nandy and her views on the sector, given her political career has so far seen her take posts across education, energy and foreign policy.
The Tote Group is headquartered in Nandy’s Wigan constituency, with the MP having previously described the group as “an iconic institution”.
According to parliamentary monitoring website They Work For You, gambling has not commonly cropped up across Nandy’s time in Westminster, with the MP making just one reference to the sector in one speech back in January 2014.
That contribution was as part of a vote on fixed odds betting terminals, or FOBTs, and whether local councils should have more powers to regulate the product.
Nandy’s single contribution to that debate a decade ago read: “The Tote has its headquarters in my constituency. Is aware that the people who feel most strongly about this are the staff who work in betting shops and see problem gambling? They are determined that there should be local powers to deal with the problem.”
In turn, Nandy voted to give local councils more powers over FOBTs, one of seven votes based on gambling during her time in the House of Commons.
Welcome @lisanandy, who we look forward to working with as Secretary of State for @DCMS.
As @Keir_Starmer appoints his team, we'll welcome our incoming ministers and work closely with them in the coming months and years to make gambling safer, fairer and crime-free in Britain. https://t.co/JiP7JZ0oHm
— Gambling Commission (@GamRegGB) July 8, 2024
In November 2013, Nandy voted to extend the horserace betting levy to overseas bookmakers, as well as require online and telephone operators to ban customer who have self-excluded.
Labour’s 2024 election manifesto included a brief mention of gambling inside its 136 pages, embedded within the chapter focused on the NHS.
Nandy’s brief will now include delivering on that aim of “reducing gambling-related harm” and to “reform gambling regulation”.
It is yet to be seen if Starmer’s government will look to re-examine the white paper into the Gambling Act 2005 review after it took almost five years to be published.
Speaking to industry experts, EGR has collated the thoughts and predictions of lawyers and stakeholders as to how the new Labour government could impact the sector.