TL;DR: James Murray has been appointed Health Secretary after Wes Streeting resigned this week, amid suspicions he now plans to launch a Labour Party leadership bid to become Prime Minister. The new Health Secretary, despite previously saying ‘trans women are women’, most recently stood by the Labour government line that "the provision of single-sex spaces is on the basis of biological sex."
James Murray has been promoted from Chief Secretary to the Treasury to Health Secretary, after Wes Streeting resigned this week saying he had "lost confidence" in Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Streeting leaves the role with a legacy of undermining Trans+ healthcare, overseeing the implementation of the Cass Review and stricter policies like the permanent ban on puberty blockers for Trans+ children, which was not recommended by Cass.
Murray is a largely unknown figure. Like the previous health secretary, he is gay. He is also a patron of LGBT+ Labour. He previously told Julia Hartley Brewer in a Talk TV interview he believed trans women are women. However, in a written statement following the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling on the meaning of ‘woman’ in the Equality Act, he said: "The Supreme Court ruling made it clear that the provision of single-sex spaces is on the basis of biological sex."
He becomes Health Secretary at a tumultuous time. NHS England’s waiting time figures are trending in the right direction for the first time in many years. However, Streeting's tenure has also seen the department permanently ban puberty blockers and undermine Trans+ healthcare.
Streeting's exit comes just a week after the department escalated its opposition to the use of puberty blockers by Trans+ children, calling this use "appalling" - QueerAF
Analysis: Starmer the lame duck, Streeting the unpopular and Burnham the King of the North
Wes Streeting is not a popular person within the LGBTQIA+ community. He is also facing scrutiny on his ties to private health donors from Good Law Project amid a growing focus on the activities of US data platform Palantir in the UK.
Meanwhile, a new Labour List poll shows he'd lose a leadership contest against Starmer, or most other prospective candidates. Political pundits were initially quick to suggest that he’s leaving now to get ahead of a timeline that would allow Andy Burnham to return to Westminster. However, Streeting's letter called for a 'broad selection' of candidates in any potential leadership election.
Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester, is widely seen as a likely winner of any Labour leadership election – if he wins the by-election to get back into Westminster, which an MP has triggered by standing down specifically so he can run.
In the meantime, James Murray inherits a Department of Health and Social Care that has made its opposition to puberty blockers for Trans+ children abundantly clear. However, it’s unclear how much his own views will matter.
The events this week, which have seen over 100 Labour MPs calling for Starmer to go, will paralyse the government. It will complicate the passage of any legislation in the UK, and at a time when international relations are a key part of the job, distractions at home will leave little room for anything else.
What is particularly striking and damaging for Labour is that this kind of coup was once reserved only for the Conservative Party. But as has become clear to many people in the LGBTQIA+ community, Labour's lurch to the right has meant the party is not the one we once knew. They have shown that we have to treat them the way we treated the Conservatives: as the opposition, not our allies.
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