Nick Clegg has summoned the international development minister, Lynne Featherstone, back to the Home Office to replace Norman Baker, who resigned complaining of a “constant battle” with Theresa May.
Featherstone, who served as a junior Home Office minister with responsibility for equalities between 2010 and 2012, returns to her old department in the more senior post as minister of state for crime prevention.
The changes, as part of a mini-reshuffle after Jenny Willott resigned as a whip, came after Baker intensified his attack on the home secretary by saying he had struggled to introduce policies in the face of a Tory “lurch to the right” in pursuit of Ukip voters.
George Osborne dismissed the departure of Baker as he mocked the former minister as a conspiracy theorist in light of his book which questioned the official account of the suicide of the government scientist Dr David Kelly after the row over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The chancellor joked at Treasury questions in the Commons that his shadow, Ed Balls, should apply as he said: “There’s now a vacancy, because [Norman Baker] has resigned, for a conspiracy theorist at the Home Office.”
The departure of Baker prompted Clegg to carry out a mini-reshuffle after Willott, who had been tipped for promotion, had informed him that she wanted to resign as a whip to allow her to raise her profile ahead of a tough fight in her marginal Cardiff Central constituency. By convention whips do not speak in the Commons.
The departure of Willott, following the decision of her fellow whip Mark Hunter to stand down to concentrate on the fight in his marginal constituency of Cheadle, highlights the nerves among Liberal Democrat MPs over the looming general election.
Lorely Burt, the MP for the highly marginal seat of Solihull, which she holds with a majority of 175, joins the whips’ office. But in a sign that Lib Dem MPs are reluctant to step into government posts on the eve of the general election, Clegg has asked deputy leader of the Commons Tom Brake to double up to fill the other vacancy in the whips’ office.
Clegg has also had to turn to the House of Lords to replace Featherstone. Lady Northover moves from the Lords whips’ office to Featherstone’s old post as a junior minister at the Department for International Development. She is replaced by Lady Garden who will be unpaid.
Featherstone said: “I am very happy to be returning to the Home Office. I am very proud of what I was able to achieve in my previous role there, not least introducing equal marriage, ending the fingerprinting of children and banning wheel-clamping on private land. I am also looking forward to continuing my work tackling violence against women and girls and on ending FGM at home and abroad. I have always had a very constructive relationship with Theresa May and I look forward to working with her again.”
Baker announced his resignation in an interview with the Independent on Monday night in which he likened working under the home secretary to “walking through mud”. The former minister expanded his attack on May on Tuesday morning as he accused her of failing to allow him to develop policies.
Baker told the BBC News channel: “The home secretary was reluctant to let me have my head and it was a constant battle to try to get things through. That is unfortunate not just for the Home Office but actually for the government.”
The former minister dismissed criticism from Damian Green, who was sacked as a Home Office minister in the Tory summer reshuffle, that he had acted as a “Lib Dem home secretary” on a par with May.
Baker said: “We are in a coalition government and therefore it was right that I took an interest in matters right across the department which is no different to how I behaved in the Department for Transport.”
But he said that his battle was complicated by the Tories’ “lurch to the right” in response to the Ukip threat.
“I have done it for a year, it is very hard work, the Home Office is probably at the cutting edge of the coalition,” he said. “It is where most policy issues are difficult, whether it is Europe or immigration. It has not been helped by the lurch to the right from the Conservative party as they chase Ukip off to the fringes.”
Baker said there was no point in hanging on to office. “We don’t always have to cling to office as ministers. If we think there is a time to go, there is a time to go. I want a break. I want to spend more time with my family, more time in my constituency, more time doing stuff I want to do, like my music.”
The Lib Dem president, Tim Farron, accused the home secretary of insulting the electorate by acting as if the Conservatives had won an overall majority at the last election in her high-handed treatment of Baker.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is a sense within the Home Office – and it is sensed around the rest of government, both sides of the coalition – Theresa May behaves as though the Conservatives won the last election. And they didn’t. It is important that we should respect the will of the electorate.”
Farron suggested that May’s behaviour was not repeated in most other departments. “Norman worked very hard to make that coalition within the Home Office work. The fact [is] that things across other departments of government are working stably – we have many disagreements – but you still work in a collegiate fashion.
“And the indications that have come – and is the case across all sides of government – is that Theresa May runs the Home Office as though she had a right to have a majority. They didn’t win the last election and it is an insult to the electorate to act as though they did.”
