Theresa May has continued the shake-up of her ministerial team by handing jobs to several junior ministers regarded as rising stars, including Dominic Raab, Alok Sharma, Jo Johnson and Sam Gyimah.

The prime minister turned her attention to the lower ranks after a cabinet reshuffle on Monday that descended into chaos when Jeremy Hunt refused to be moved from his job as health secretary and Justine Greening quit rather than move from education to work and pensions.

The junior ministerial changes were billed in advance as an opportunity for May to clear out some older ministers and promote newer MPs, after Monday’s moves left the cabinet still overwhelmingly male and white.

Sam Gyimah becomes minister for higher education. Photograph: Tal Cohen/Rex/Shutterstock

However, the first tranche of ministers who entered No 10 to be promoted were all men. Sharma went from housing to employment minister and Raab got the housing portfolio, which has more prominence in the newly named Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Johnson, the younger brother of Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, was promoted to minister of state at the Department for Transport and minister for London.

The prisons minister Sam Gyimah replaced Johnson as minister for higher education, based jointly between the education and business departments.

Jo Johnson was promoted to transport minister and minister for London. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA

Rory Stewart became a minister of state in the justice department, moving from international development, while Stephen Barclay was made a minister of state at health, moving from the Treasury.

The first woman to get a junior-level promotion was Caroline Dinenage, who was also made a minister of state for health. Her move was quickly followed by a bigger job for Margot James, made minister of state in the department for digital, culture, media and sport, and for Harriett Baldwin, who became a minister of state at the Foreign Office.

Caroline Dinenage arrives in Downing Street before her promotion. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

A number of more experienced colleagues were sacked to make way for fresh talent. Mark Garnier, who was cleared before Christmas over alleged inappropriate behaviour towards his personal assistant, lost his job as a trade minister.

Garnier said in a tweet he was “very sad” to have left the international trade department but would support May from the backbenches.



Very sad to have lost my job at @tradegovuk but looking forward to supporting @theresa_may Government from the backbenches — Mark Garnier (@Mark4WyreForest) January 9, 2018

Less than three weeks ago, a Cabinet Office inquiry formally cleared him of wrongdoing for asking his former assistant to buy a sex toy and calling her “sugar tits”, with no action being taken against him.

Garnier did not deny the accusations about the events in 2010, made by his former assistant Caroline Edmondson, but the inquiry concluded there was no evidence he had done anything wrong since becoming a minister in July 2016.

The investigation also heard evidence “in relation to an incident that happened before Mr Garnier was a minister, between Mr Garnier and a member of his parliamentary and constituency staff”, a statement said at the time.

Harriet Baldwin became Foreign Office minister. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

“The Cabinet Office concluded that there was no dispute about the facts of the incident, but there was a significant difference of interpretation between the parties, and that the member of staff in Mr Garnier’s office was distressed by what had occurred.”

Robert Goodwill, the minister for children and families at the Department for Education, has also lost his job. Goodwill’s local newspaper in Scarborough quoted him as saying that he was “making way for younger people” in the reshuffle.

John Hayes, a transport minister, and Philip Dunne, a health minister, also left the frontbench. Dunne was criticised on Monday for his handling of a debate in the House of Commons on the NHS winter crisis after he answered a question about patients forced to sleep on the floor of A&E with a statement that there were empty seats available.