Brooks Newmark takes on youth work and charities brief

The Cabinet Office said the Conservative MP for Braintree has taken over from Nick Hurd, who stood down from the role he had held since May 2010 as part of the government’s sweeping cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday.

US-born Newmark was elected to Parliament in May 2005 and is a graduate of the Harvard Business School and Oxford University. During his political career he has served on the science and technology, and treasury select committees, and is a former senior government whip.

Posting on social network site Twitter, he said he was “absolutely delighted” to be appointed and was looking forward to working with “our country's great charities and voluntary sector”.

He also paid tribute to Hurd’s “tremendous work with the voluntary sector over the past four years in government”, and pledged to “build on his excellent work”.

In addition, Newmark is the co-founder and director of education charity A Partner in Education, and is involved in several other Essex-based charities.

He also co-founded the Million Jobs Campaign, which last September set out a manifesto to tackle the large number of young people aged 16 to 24 who were not in education, employment or training (Neet).

The campaign’s manifesto sets out five key policies for tackling youth unemployment, including scrapping the youth contract in favour of scrapping employer national insurance contributions for under-25s, offering school pupils more information about apprenticeships, freeing up employers to give “honest feedback” to young people, encouraging more companies to take on school leavers and offering every young person a mentor.

Newmark also spoke on Tuesday at a Westminster Hall debate on youth unemployment where he highlighted the government’s efforts to tackle the problem through the Youth Contract and apprenticeships.

Newmark’s appointment follows a major reshuffle of education ministers, with Education Secretary Michael Gove being replaced by Nicky Morgan and former childcare minister Elizabeth Truss being promoted to Environment Secretary. Nick Gibb and Sam Gyimah have come in as education ministers but at the time of going to press their responsibilities had yet to be decided.

Others to move in the reshuffle include youth justice minister Jeremy Wright, who has become Attorney General and whose successor is yet to be announced, while Mark Harper has become minister for disabled people and carers.