Greening gives first interview since reshuffle

Justine Greening spoke to the Today Programme on Radio 4, pledging to continue to champion social mobility from the back benches.

Greening explained that her decision to turn down the offer of pensions secretary was because she wanted to follow her passion of “equality of opportunity”.

Greening said: “Did I take a fourth cabinet role, running a fourth department, or did I carry on focusing on the issue that really drove me into politics and matters to me hugely which is social mobility, equality of opportunity.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable that we live in a country where the place that you’re growing up or maybe your circumstances still so much changes the future that you have ahead of you.”

“The conversation [with the primeminister] was simply around the fact that she wanted me to move into the Department for Work and Pensions, I feel so passionately about social mobility and equality of opportunity, to me that was the overriding thing that I wanted to put my time into.”

“What I’m saying is I can play a huge role in pushing that strategy forward both inside government but also outside government, and that’s what I wanted to put my time into.”

Greening gave her first interview since leaving office on the Today Programme on Radio 4 on 29 January.