Business minister quits post
By politics.co.uk staff
Business minister Baroness Vadera will leave her post to advise on the G20 from Downing Street.
The peer will be taking on a new role co-ordinating the handover of the G20 presidency from Britain to South Korea. Government sources confirmed she will continue to have a desk in the Cabinet Office and will be unpaid in her new role.
As one of Gordon Brown’s closest aides, she is currently with him at the UN in New York.
Downing Street has confirmed Lord Mervyn Davies will take over her role as business minister.
The peer was appointed to the post only last year. She is the most recent in a string of Gordon Brown’s goats – expert business advisors appointed by the prime minister to the government – to quit her post.
The prime minister stressed his pleasure at her change of role.
“The G20 is an increasingly important global group,” he told reporters.
“The previous year has shown the vital importance of working together to deliver jobs, growth, and stability. In her new role Shriti will significantly strengthen the UK’s engagement with the G20, including working with the Republic of Korea as the next chair.”
Baroness Vadera previously came to the media’s attention when she claimed earlier this year she could sense the green shoots of economic recovery, causing outrage among some media commentators.
