A high-profile breech of the ministerial code has forced Prime Minister Theresa May to reshuffle her team of MPs at the Ministry of Justice, with Robert Buckland appointed the new prisons minister and Lucy Fraser promoted to solicitor general.

The reshuffle became necessary when disgraced former defence secretary Gavin Williamson was sacked for his alleged role in the leaking of sensitive security discussions about Chinese telecoms firm Huawei. This meant that Penny Mordaunt was appointed as the new defence secretary, while Rory Stewart was promoted from prisons minister to fill Modaunt's previous role as secretary for international development.

Prisons and civil liberties experts will be alarmed by Stewart’s departure from the prisons role – he was the first competent prisons minister to be in post long enough to understand the complexities of the crisis in UK prisons and had promised to resign if conditions did not improve.