Ms Dodds grew up in Aberdeen and completed a Masters Degree in social policy at the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in government at the London School of Economics.

Ms Dodds, who is currently MP for Oxford East also served as work and pensions secretary in Tony Blair’s government.

She told the BBC that it was a “surprise” when she received the phone call from Mr Starmer offering her the job and said she was “delighted” to accept the promotion.

In an interview this morning, Ms Dodds told BBC Radio 4’s Today, programme: “I was very engaged in politics at the time when Gordon Brown led that international response to the financial crisis that occurred back in 2008-9 and I was inspired by his international leadership back then.

“I think we need to have that kind of approach coming from the UK now as well so certainly that’s something that I’ll be pushing as hard as I possibly can.”

“I do think there do need to be changes made to some of those programmes and I want to work constructively with Rishi Sunak on that. Clearly there should not be any kind of partisan knockabout during this period, that would be completely inappropriate.”