Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Children and Families)

Josh MacAlister OBE MP

Biography

Josh MacAlister was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State State (Minister for Children and Families) at the Department for Education on 7 September 2025.

He was elected as the MP for Whitehaven and Workington in July 2024.

Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Children and Families)

The minister’s responsibilities include:

  • children’s social care
  • children in care and children in need
  • looked-after children
  • child protection
  • adoption
  • kinship care and foster care
  • care leavers
  • children’s social care workforce
  • unaccompanied asylum-seeking children
  • single unique identifier for children
  • local authority improvement
  • family support
  • safeguarding
  • prevention of serious violence in schools and post-16 settings
  • counter extremism in schools and post-16 settings
  • maintenance and improvement of the education estate
  • environmental sustainability in the education sectors

More about this role

Department for Education