Lord Prior has replaced Jesse Norman MP as the BEIS Minister responsible for Construction as Mr Norman moves to take on the energy brief.

 

Lord Prior joined the government, last month, as parliamentary under secretary, on the same day that Baroness Neville-Rolfe left her role as energy minister to become commercial secretary to the Treasury.

 

It is reported that Lord Prior’s brief within BEIS will cover infrastructure, construction, professional services, rail supply chain and the maritime sector.   

 

In an era of ever-changing construction ministers, Mr Norman had perhaps the briefest of tenures, lasting less than six months.

 

In addition to the areas covered by Lord Prior’s current brief, Mr Norman also looked after energy policy, nuclear and oil and gas, including shale gas.

 

Lord Prior was previously Chairman of the Care Quality Commission, from 2013, and he served at the Department of Health as minister for NHS Productivity from May 2015 until December 2016.   He is a barrister who worked as an associate at Lehman Brothers and Lazard Freres, and as a senior executive with British Steel for some 15 years.    His father - also Lord Prior - was employment secretary in Margaret Thatcher’s government during the 1980s.