The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP

The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch MP

The Department for Business and Trade brings business and trade together into a single department, creating a department with all the levers to unleash the power of British businesses, reform regulation to reduce burdens and unlock Brexit freedoms.

The department will bring together business expertise and world-class trade negotiators under the vision of making the UK the best place to start and grow a business – driving growth, increasing jobs, and raising wages and living standards. It will amplify engagement between business and government and strengthen our offer to international investors. The department will support investment, unlock exports, and open up new markets through trade deals, with joined-up offers of support to UK businesses operating both at home and abroad.

The Department for Business and Trade brings together the business focused functions of the former Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for International Trade (DIT).

Minister for Women and Equalities

The Minister for Women and Equalities has responsibility for:

• developing an equalities policy that it is based on individual autonomy and dignity
• promoting equality of opportunity for everyone

Before July 2014, this role was covered by the Minister for Women and the Minister for Equalities.

MP for Saffron Walden

The Rt Hon Kemi Badenoch is the Conservative MP for Saffron Walden, and has been an MP continuously since 8 June 2017. She currently holds the Government posts of Minister for Women and Equalities, Secretary of State for Business and Trade, and Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade.

Biography

Kemi Badenoch was appointed Secretary of State for the Department for Business and Trade on 7 February 2023. She remains Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade on, which she was appointed to on 6 September 2022, and Minister for Women and Equalities, which she was appointed to on 25 October 2022.

Previously she was Minister of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities between 16 September 2021 and 6 July 2022. She was Minister of State (Minister for Equalities) in the Equality Hub between 14 February 2020 and July 2022.

She was previously Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury from 13 February 2020 to 15 September 2021 and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Education from 27 July 2019 to 13 February 2020.