Boris Johnson could use Cabinet reshuffle to promote women to senior team, No10 suggests

Boris Johnson is set to use a Cabinet reshuffle to boost the proportion of women in his top team, a senior aide has suggested.

The Prime Minister would “like to improve how representative his Cabinet is of the population at large”, his press secretary Allegra Stratton told reporters on Monday.

She confirmed he describes himself as a feminist and said he had used the term in a meeting with female MPs last autumn.

At present there are only five women out of 23 full members of Cabinet, or less than a quarter. A shake-up of Mr Johnson’s senior team has long been tipped for July and is expected to coincide with a wider Government reset once the pandemic is over.

Ms Stratton said: “We know that there is improvement to come in the years ahead when he - who knows when this comes - when we have promotions to Cabinet.

There are a “great number of talented women” in Government, she added, highlighting the work done by Vicky Ford, the children’s minister, and Helen Whately, the care minister.

It also emerged that Mr Johnson is unlikely to take paternity leave, with Ms Stratton saying “he works a very long day, he has a huge workload”.

Previously Downing Street had said he planned to take a “short period” off following the birth of his son Wilfred with his fiancee Carrie Symonds last year.

The change of plan emerged after Mr Johnson met virtually with 9 female business leaders in a roundtable event to mark International Women’s Day, during which the issue of fathers taking time off to look after children arose.

Ms Stratton said: “He listened to the recommendations they made about childcare cover and whether there's enough of it. He also listened to their hope that we can have a push on getting young women into Stem subjects - science and technology, engineering and so on.

"And lastly, but not leastly, he was also interested to hear what they have to say about whether enough dads take time off to look after their children."

Later, during a televised Downing Street press conference to mark the return of pupils to the classroom, Mr Johnson paid tribute to the sacrifices made by women during the pandemic

“We all know that the burden has disproportionately fallen on women, often holding down jobs and providing childcare at the same time,” he said.

On social media, he highlighted the work of a series of women involved in the battle against coronavirus.

He praised Professor Sarah Gilbert, who helped develop the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, former vaccines taskforce head Kate Bingham, medical regulator boss Dr June Raine, and NHS England's Dr Emily Lawson and Dr Nikki Kanani.

“This International Women’s Day I want to pay tribute to some of the leading figures in the UK's vaccination programme,” he said.

“Their ingenuity, dedication and hard work is an inspiration to all of us.”