First Secretary of State

Template:Short description Template:Infobox official post Template:Uk-gov-positions First Secretary of State is an office that is sometimes held by a minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The office indicates seniority, including over all other secretaries of state. The office is not always in use, so there have sometimes been extended gaps between successive holders.

The office frequently serves the same political functions as that of Deputy Prime Minister, and while there have been occasions when the two titles have existed at the same time, Prime Ministers historically have tended to designate one or the other (or neither). The office is currently vacant. The most recent person to hold the title was Dominic Raab from 2019 to 2021, which ended when the title was swapped for Deputy Prime Minister instead in 2022.

Constitutional position

Like the deputy prime minister, the first secretary enjoys no right of automatic succession to the office of Prime Minister. However, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to an intensive care unit on 6 April 2020, after contracting COVID-19, First Secretary Dominic Raab was asked "to deputise for him where necessary."

The office temporarily enjoyed some greater constitutional footing between when it was incorporated as a corporation sole in 2002 and having all of its remaining functions transferred in 2008. During most of this time, John Prescott was First Secretary.

History

In 1962, R.A. Butler was the first person to be appointed to the office, in part to avoid earlier royal objections to the office of Deputy Prime Minister. The office gave Butler ministerial superiority over the rest of the Cabinet and indicated that he was second-in-command. Harold Wilson appointed three people to the office between 1964 and 1970, but it has been noted by Anthony Seldon et al. that the office may have caught on "more as an ego-massager than for functional reasons."

Later, Michael Heseltine and John Prescott held the office alongside being Deputy Prime Minister. The two offices have only existed concurrently with different holders in David Cameron's coalition government, wherein Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg was appointed Deputy Prime Minister while Conservative William Hague was First Secretary.

Responsibilities

The office is currently listed on the gov.uk website as bringing no additional responsibilities. However, Lord Norton says that there are two benefits to a prime minister in appointing a first secretary: firstly, it leaves a senior minister free to perform correlation and co-ordination and to chair committees and, secondly, it enables the prime minister to send a signal as to the status of the holder. Stephen Thornton and Jonathan Kirkup have said that "the Office of First Secretary of State is only as important as the person holding that office is perceived to be important", but in certain circumstances the office "can assume acute importance and real power" and it may yet become an office of substance.

List of First Secretaries of State

First Secretary of State			Term of office		Other ministerial offices	Party	Ministry
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Rab Butler in 1963 (3x4 cropped).jpg	R. A. Butler MP for Saffron Walden	13 July 1962	18 October 1963		Conservative	Template:Party shading/Conservative (UK) |Macmillan II
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:GeorgeBrown1967 (cropped).jpg	George Brown MP for Belper	16 October 1964	11 August 1966	Secretary of State for Economic Affairs	Labour	rowspan=3 Template:Party shading/Labour |Wilson (I & II)
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Michael Stewart (1966).jpg	Michael Stewart MP for Fulham	11 August 1966	6 April 1968	Secretary of State for Economic AffairsTemplate:Efn Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth AffairsTemplate:Efn	Labour
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:1657535162180 OP002 CASTLE 001 MOBILE.jpg	Barbara Castle MP for Blackburn	6 April 1968	19 June 1970	Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity	Labour
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Lord Heseltine (6969083278).jpg	Michael Heseltine MP for Henley	20 July 1995	2 May 1997	Deputy Prime Minister	Conservative	Template:Party shading/Conservative (UK) |Major II
rowspan=2 style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:John Prescott official portrait (cropped) (fixed).png	John Prescott MP for Kingston upon Hull East	8 June 2001	27 June 2007	Deputy Prime MinisterTemplate:Efn	Labour	Template:Party shading/Labour |Blair II
Template:Party shading/Labour |Blair III
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Peter Mandelson, Member of the EC (cropped).jpg	The Lord Mandelson	5 June 2009	11 May 2010	Lord President of the Council Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills President of the Board of Trade	Labour	Template:Party shading/Labour |Brown
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:William Hague (2010).jpg	William Hague MP for Richmond (Yorks)	12 May 2010	8 May 2015	Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth AffairsTemplate:Efn Leader of the House of CommonsTemplate:Efn	Conservative	Template:Party shading/Coalition (UK) |Cameron–Clegg (Con.–L.D.)
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Osborne 2015.jpg	George Osborne MP for Tatton	8 May 2015	13 July 2016	Chancellor of the Exchequer	Conservative	Template:Party shading/Conservative (UK) |Cameron II
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Official portrait of Damian Green crop 2.jpg	Damian Green MP for Ashford	11 June 2017	20 December 2017	Minister for the Cabinet Office	Conservative	Template:Party shading/Conservative (UK) |May II
style="background-color:Template:Party color" |	File:Official portrait of Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP crop 2.jpg	Dominic Raab MP for Esher and Walton	24 July 2019	15 September 2021	Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth AffairsTemplate:Efn Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development AffairsTemplate:Efn	Conservative	Template:Party shading/Conservative (UK) |Johnson (I & II)

Timeline

<timeline> ImageSize = width:1050 height:auto barincrement:15 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:60 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = late

Define $today = 17/12/2025

DateFormat=dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:01/01/1960 till:31/12/2025 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMinor = unit:year increment:1 start:01/01/1960 ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:5 start:01/01/1960

Colors =

 id:con    value:rgb(0.094,0.525,0.8)       legend:Conservative
 id:lab    value:rgb(0.937,0.094,0.129) legend:Labour

Legend = columns:2 left:125 top:28 columnwidth:100

TextData =

 pos:(25,30) textcolor:black fontsize:M
 text:"Political parties:"

BarData =

 bar:Butler
 bar:Brown
 bar:Stewart
 bar:Castle
 bar:Heseltine
 bar:Prescott
 bar:Mandelson
 bar:Hague
 bar:Osborne
 bar:Green
 bar:Raab

PlotData=

 width:5 align:left fontsize:s shift:(5,-4) anchor:till

bar:Butler
from: 13/07/1962 till: 18/10/1963 color:con text:"Rab Butler"
bar:Brown
from: 16/10/1964 till: 11/08/1966 color:lab text:"George Brown"
bar:Stewart
from: 11/08/1966 till: 06/04/1968 color:lab text:"Michael Stewart"
bar:Castle
from: 06/04/1968 till: 19/06/1970 color:lab text:"Barbara Castle"
bar:Heseltine
from: 20/07/1995 till: 02/05/1997 color:con text:"Michael Heseltine"
bar:Prescott
from: 08/06/2001 till: 27/07/2007 color:lab text:"John Prescott"
bar:Mandelson
from: 05/06/2009 till: 11/05/2010 color:lab text:"Peter Mandelson"
bar:Hague
from: 12/05/2010 till: 08/05/2015 color:con text:"William Hague"
bar:Osborne
from: 08/05/2015 till: 13/07/2016 color:con text:"George Osborne"
bar:Green
from: 11/06/2017 till: 20/12/2017 color:con text:"Damian Green"
bar:Raab
from: 24/07/2019 till: 15/09/2021 color:con text:"Dominic Raab"

</timeline>

See also

• Ministerial ranking - the "pecking order" or relative importance of senior ministers in the UK government.
• Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, a similar position, sometimes used as an alternative to the First Secretary