Greg Hands appointed as UK junior trade minister

(Reuters) -British lawmaker Greg Hands was appointed minister of state for trade, the prime minister’s office said in a statement on Sunday.

“An honour and a great privilege to be in His Majesty’s Government,” Hands said in a tweet following his appointment.

Hands’ appointment comes after Conor Burns was sacked as a junior trade minister on Friday and suspended from the parliamentary Conservative Party following a “complaint of serious misconduct” at its annual conference last week.

Hands was previously the minister of state at the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, a role which he held for over a year.

(Reporting by Baranjot Kaur in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Aurora Ellis)