Labour transport secretary Louise Haigh has appointed Mike Kane, MP for Wythenshawe and East Sale, as the new aviation minister.
Kane had acted as shadow aviation minister since 2020 and is well-known in the aviation industry. He entered Parliament in 2014 having previously worked as a primary school teacher and as a Parliamentary aid.
His appointment was confirmed this morning alongside that of two other transport ministers.
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Lillian Greenwood, MP for Nottingham South, has been appointed a parliamentary under secretary at the Department for Transport (DfT) having most recently acted as shadow minister for arts and heritage.
However, Greenwood served as a shadow transport minister from 2011 to 2015 and as shadow transport secretary in 2015-16. She subsequently joined the transport select committee of MPs, serving from 2017 to 2020.
Greenwood entered Parliament in 2010.
Haigh has also appointed Simon Lightwood, MP for Wakefield and Rothwell, as a parliamentary under-secretary at the DfT.
Lightwood was first elected at a by-election in 2022 and was shadow minister for local transport until the general election, a role he is expected to fulfil now, although the responsibilities of the new ministers have yet to be confirmed.
Kane, Greenwood and Lightwood join Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill at the DfT. Hendy was appointed a transport minister on Monday.
A barrister, Lord Hendy was described by legal publication The Lawyer as the “barrister champion of the trade union movement”. He is expected to have responsibility for the railways, including a brief to improve government relations with the rail unions.
Transport secretary Haigh has identified a gradual re-nationalisation of the railways in the course of this Parliament as her number-one priority.