Darren Jones on his new role, the morning school run and his political awakening

Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones revealed more details about how his new role came to exist – along with how he juggles his ministerial responsibilities with his role as a father.

Speaking to Sky News’ Beth Rigby at Labour Party conference, Jones said that the role was initially set to be called Minister for Downing Street and had a meeting with the Prime Minister over the summer to discuss creating the role, before being offered the position.

More capacity

Jones said: “Keir was working over the summer recess and he was reflecting on our first year in government and the things that he maybe wanted to tweak or optimise coming into the second year – and he decided that he wanted more ministerial capacity in Number 10.

“In a department, there’s always a Secretary of State and a group of ministers – it’s a team effort, because there’s so much to do. But Number 10 isn’t a department, it’s a private residence. It’s technically a unit of the Cabinet Office, but it functions very separately, so it’s never had a team of ministers to help out the Prime Minister.

“He wanted to bring a minister in. He asked me to come and see him at Chequers in the summer and he talked me through his thinking about what he wanted – and then he said: ‘Do you fancy it?’

“Of course, when the Prime Minister says that, you say it would be a privilege to serve. I was thinking I’m flattered to be asked, and it’s a huge honour to be asked at that point because normally you’re hanging around for the phone to ring and you get given a job – so to be part of the conversation before it had started was very generous.”

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Jones also admitted to being initially a little daunted by the challenge posed by the new role and said: “It’s a huge task; fix government delivery, help improve communications, help change the country. Now I’m just delighted to be in that role and running at it.”

He said he sees the role as similar to the position he had as Chief Secretary to the Treasury under Rachel Reeves and said he is working “hand in glove with the Prime Minister”.

“This is why the role is called Chief Secretary – originally it was going to be called Minister for Downing Street. I said to Keir at that meeting in Chequers ‘you’re really just trying to create a Chief Secretary role’, which is why it’s now called that.

“The great thing about my relationship with Rachel [in his previous role] is that 99% of the time I knew exactly what she’s going to think about something, and I know what her priorities are so I can just get on with the job for her. If I don’t know, if I’m unsure, I know that very quickly and I can go and have a chat about it.”

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Jones told Rigby about his morning routine in his role as Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, which involves getting his children ready for school before heading off to a morning briefing with Keir Starmer.

Clean hands

“I normally wake up about 6.15am. I try to do some exercise, because that’s one of the things that falls off very quickly when you get into these jobs, so I have a little spin bike in the flat so I go on that for a bit. Then I get the kids up, get breakfast and give them very clear instructions that when I’m in the shower, they need to get dressed.

“I get out of the shower, try and figure out the kids and then we get out the door. I take the two older girls to primary school now for breakfast club, because I have to start the day an hour earlier than I did when I was at the Treasury because of the new role.

“I was told I was allowed a baby seat in the government car without breaching the ministerial code, because it was on the way to the office – so that was quite progressive. The car is there at the school.

“The trouble is the baby knows the driver’s name and she’s like ‘Andy, Andy’. I’m like ‘you’re going to be on the bus soon, don’t get used to having Andy driving you around’.

“We get the baby in the car, we get up to the House of Commons nursery. Now the nursery, they are wonderful, lovely people, but they don’t really know what jobs we all have – and they make you wash their hands. So you might be running late for Cabinet or seeing the Prime Minister and you’re there being like ‘Bubbles, bottom of the hand, top of the hand, through the fingers, wash the hand, dry the hand’.

“Baby into the nursery, out the door, across the road to Downing Street – and then I’ve normally got about four minutes to think before I get into the daily briefing with the PM and I have to say something sensible. It’s now 8.45am by this point.”

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Jones also spoke about his upbringing on a council estate and how that has shaped his politics. While he said he had a good time growing up and is proud of where he comes from, he admitted that his family struggled financially. However, the introduction of the minimum wage by Tony Blair’s Labour government transformed their lives – and gave Jones his first window into politics.

A turning point

“The first time I really clocked politics – because I don’t come from a political family at all; my family were trade unionists but they weren’t involved in politics – was the national minimum wage. It completely transformed our lives.

“My mum used to get paid like £2 an hour working at the hospital typing up notes, and the minimum wage was a turning point for us. For me, in particular, the policies that came out of the mantra of ‘education, education, education’ gave me the chance, the first in my family, to go on to A Levels – because my school, and I’m very fond of my school and all of my teachers,  but it was one of the worst performing in the country.

“I was given that path to get on and do well – and I am enormously grateful and indebted to the Labour government for all of that, but I am very mindful of the fact that there are lots of kids on my council estate in my constituency today who are not being given that opportunity.

“I’ve been lucky, but for me, for the Labour Party, you don’t want to just give opportunities for the lucky few. You want to create this as a kind of structural answer so that everybody gets the chances in whichever way they want to.” 

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