The new Defra, all female, team – Mark Avery

Following the departure of Angela Rayner, and a smallish reshuffle, the new Defra team is led by Emma Reynolds (in place of Steve Reed) and in comes Angela Eagle as Minister of State (replacing Daniel Zeichner).

Mr Reed directly takes the place of Angela Rayner at Housing, Communities and Local Government – let’s hope he did learn something about location, location, location whilst at Defra but who knows? When Mr Reed takes his seat at Cabinet today he will be sitting closer to the middle of the table and closer to the Prime Minister whereas his Defra replacement will be on the margins.

Ms Reynolds is an unknown quantity as far as I am concerned.

Daniel Zeichner has left the government and I’m unaware of anything very bad or very good that he has done while being a Defra minister.

Maria Eagle, a former Shadow Defra Secretary, has left the government too but her twin sister, Angela, is now finding her way in Defra. I suppose that is a type of Eagle reintroduction.

The office holders in government do make a difference but it’s often quite difficult to predict in advance what difference they will make, particularly in Defra. Defra is a low-ranking government department and feels like a political backwater until something goes wrong. This is strange since the E and F words in the title are clearly important to all. It’s almost as though our politicians think we live in hermetically sealed and regulated environments, have no concerns over how much food there is or its quality and that there are no rural areas between the towns in which the whole population lives.

It is the job of our environmental NGOs to push the needs of wildlife up the agenda and they will be talking about that on Thursday, at the first Wild Summit, in Bristol. How many Defra ministers have bought a ticket?

[registration_form]