Burnham takes over as Shadow Home Secretary

Former Health Secretary Andy Burnham has been appointed Shadow Home Secretary in newly-elected Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s first Shadow Cabinet.

Lord Falconer will remain as Shadow Justice Secretary.

Mr Burnham was appointed after Yvette Cooper, the previous incumbent, confirmed she would not serve in a Cabinet run by Mr Corbyn. However, Ms Cooper will continue to chair Labour’s refugee taskforce.

Mr Corbyn, who voted against the Government more than 500 times as a backbencher during Tony Blair’s term as Prime Minister, was elected leader on Saturday with 251,417 votes – almost 60 per cent of those cast.

Mr Burnham had previously said Mr Corbyn’s leadership would be a ‘disaster’ for Labour and ran against him, finishing second with 19 per cent of the vote. Fellow leadership candidates Ms Cooper and Liz Kendall received 17 and 4.5 per cent of the vote respectively.

Hilary Benn, son of the late Labour MP Tony Benn, will continue as Shadow Foreign Secretary, while John McDonnell will become Shadow Chancellor.

Tom Watson, who along with Conservative MP David Davis was successful in challenging the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act (see PP465) at the High Court in July, was elected deputy leader, ahead of Stella Creasy, Angela Eagle, Caroline Flint and Ben Bradshaw.

Last week, former Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan was elected Labour’s candidate for the 2016 London Mayoral elections.

Mr Khan defeated former MP and Olympics Minister Dame Tessa Jowell in the fifth round of voting with 58.9 per cent of the vote. During his campaign, Mr Khan proposed a quota for black and minority ethnic (BME) officers for the Metropolitan Police Service to ensure it better reflects the capital’s population.

As Police Professional went to press it was not known if Jack Dromey will continue as Shadow Policing Minister.