Former teacher Gullis appointed as junior education minister

Jonathan Gullis MP has been appointed as a minister in the Department for Education (DfE). Mr Gullis, who is a former teacher and has been the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North since 2019, joins the DfE as parliamentary under secretary of state. During his time as an MP he has served on the education select committee, and earlier this year he launched a campaign to lift the ban on opening new grammar schools. At the time he commented ‘Education is currently the very definition of a postcode lottery. Protecting existing grammar schools without creating new ones is reinforcing this’. During the conservative party leadership election Liz Truss said she wanted more parents to have the option of sending their children to a grammar school, and Kelly Tolhust – another recently appointed minister at the DfE – has also previously spoken about her support for grammar schools.

Mr Gullis attracted attention in March this year when he used a question in parliament to accuse ‘woke warrior teachers’ of pushing ‘extremist nonsense’ on to pupils. More recently, at Liz Truss’ first prime minister’s questions on 7 September he was reprimanded by the speaker Lindsay Hoyle for shouting out from the backbenches while Ms Truss was answering questions. Mr Hoyle said ‘One of the members for Stoke is getting very carried away. And I know as a former teacher he'll want to show better behaviour than he's showing at the moment’. Prior to entering parliament Mr Gullis was a secondary school teacher in Birmingham, where he was also a head of year and the school’s trade union representative for the NASUWT. Elsewhere at the DfE, junior minister Brendan Clarke-Smith has left to become a minister at the Cabinet Office.