Ministerial role

Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Organisations: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs
Current role holder: The Rt Hon George Eustice MP

Responsibilities

The Secretary of State has overall responsibility for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Specific responsibilities include:

  • Oversight of Defra’s COVID-19 response
  • Departmental administration
  • Emergencies
  • EU and international relations and oversight trade mandates and post-transition delivery and policy programme
  • General licencing
  • Senior appointments

Current role holder

The Rt Hon George Eustice MP

George Eustice was appointed Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 13 February 2020.

He was previously Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) from 11 May 2015 to 13 February 2020.

He was elected as the Conservative MP for Camborne and Redruth in 2010.

Political career

George served on the EFRA Select Committee from 2010.

Career outside politics

Coming from a farming background, his family still run a fruit farm, restaurant and farm shop in Cornwall where they also have a herd of South Devon cattle and the country’s oldest herd of the rare breed of pig, the British Lop. The family have shown a keen interest in educating children about farming and have opened their farm to 3000 schoolchildren a year.

More about this person

Previous holders of this role

  1. The Rt Hon Theresa Villiers MP

    2019 to 2020

  2. The Rt Hon Michael Gove MP

    2017 to 2019

  3. The Rt Hon Andrea Leadsom MP

    2016 to 2017

  4. The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss MP

    2014 to 2016

  5. The Rt Hon Owen Paterson MP

    2012 to 2014

  6. The Rt Hon Caroline Spelman

    2010 to 2012

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