The new Prime Minister Liz Truss has replaced Grant Shapps as transport secretary with former international trade secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan.
Mr Shapps, MP for Welwyn Garden City, is returning to the back benches.
In recent days Mr Shapps had supported Boris Johnson in calling on Transport for London to start planning for driverless Underground trains, and also gained notoriety when he insisted in a television interview that there are four trains an hour between London and Manchester, although there is currently just one under Avanti West Coast’s reduced timetable and never have been four. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of railway reopenings, and attended the return of passenger services to Okehampton last November.
The cabinet reshuffle has also seen rail minister Wendy Morton leaving the Department for Transport to become chief whip. Her successor at the DfT has not yet been announced.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan had supported Liz Truss in the competition to become leader of the Conservative Party, while Mr Shapps was briefly a candidate for the leadership himself.
Ms Trevelyan is a former chartered accountant, and has been an MP since 2015. She represents the border constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed.