Baroness Neville-Rolfe leaves BEIS

Baroness Neville-Rolfe has departed her post as minister at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) to join the Treasury as its new commercial secretary.

She has been replaced by Lord Prior of Brampton who has joined BEIS as a parliamentary under-secretary, having previously served as an under-secretary at the Department of Health.

Baroness Neville-Rolfe was appointed as energy minister in July shortly after the Department of Energy and Climate Change was scrapped and amalgamated with Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) to form BEIS.

Her responsibilities included covering energy, intellectual property and the EU single market, and taking the lead in the Lords on all BEIS issues. She had previously served as an under-secretary at both BIS and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, as well as a non-executive director for the Carbon Trust between 2008 and 2013.

Lord Prior was made a life peer around the same time as his appointment to the Department of Health in May 2015. Before that he served one term as the MP for North Norfolk between 1997 and 2001 and was deputy chairman and chief executive of the Conservative Party from 1999 to 2001.

He was also a member of Commons Select Committee for Trade and Industry and held a number of private sector positions in his early career, including commercial director at British Steel.