| Political offices in the UK government |
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| List of political offices |
A minister of state is a mid-tier Minister of the Crown in the UK government.
| Political offices in the UK government |
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| |
| List of political offices |
A minister of state is a mid-tier Minister of the Crown in the UK government.
Ministers of State are junior to the Prime Minister and Secretaries of State, but senior to a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State and Parliamentary Private Secretary. The office is defined in the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975 as "...a member of Her Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom who neither has charge of any public department nor holds any other of the offices specified in Schedule 2 to this Act or any office in respect of which a salary is payable out of money provided by Parliament under section 3(1)(b) of the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975". [1]
The designation was first made in 1941 for Lord Beaverbrook, who was a member of the War Cabinet and was tasked with creating the Ministry of Production. [2] His successors were effectively Ministers without Portfolio, but this changed in 1950 when the first junior minister was appointed to that designation, in the Foreign Office, to release some burden from the then-Foreign Secretary. [2]
Ministers of State take charge of a particular part of their department and undertake specific delegated duties. [3] To help to identify these duties, since the 1970s Ministers of State have often been granted a courtesy title which includes the word "for" (rather than "of"). [3]
The current Ministers of State are: [4]
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the ministry of foreign affairs and a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom.
The Home Office (HO), also known as the Home Department, is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for immigration, security, and law and order. As such, it is responsible for policing in England and Wales, fire and rescue services in England, Border Force, visas and immigration, and the Security Service (MI5). It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs, counterterrorism, and immigration. It was formerly responsible for His Majesty's Prison Service and the National Probation Service, but these have been transferred to the Ministry of Justice.
The minister of state for development, formerly the minister of state for development and Africa and the secretary of state for international development, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom.
The Department for International Development (DFID) was a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid internationally.
The Government of the United Kingdom is divided into departments that each have responsibility, according to the government, for putting government policy into practice. There are currently 24 ministerial departments, 20 non-ministerial departments, and 422 agencies and other public bodies, for a total of 465 departments.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is responsible for environmental protection, food production and standards, agriculture, fisheries and rural communities in the entire United Kingdom. Concordats set out agreed frameworks for co operation, between it and the Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Executive, which have devolved responsibilities for these matters in their respective nations.
The secretary of state for Scotland, also referred to as the Scottish secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Scotland Office. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. The Secretary of State for Scotland is serves as the custodian of the Scottish devolution settlement as outlined in the Scotland Act 1998, and represent Scottish interests within the UK Government as well as advocate for UK Government policies in Scotland. The Secretary of State for Scotland is additionally responsible for partnership between the UK Government and the Scottish Government, as well as relations between the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the Scottish Parliament.
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 parliamentary under-secretary of state is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister of State, which is itself junior to a Secretary of State.
His Majesty's principal secretaries of state, or secretaries of state, are senior ministers of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. Secretaries of state head most major government departments and make up the majority of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom.
The Minister of State for Europe, is a ministerial position within the Government of the United Kingdom, in charge of affairs with Europe. The Minister can also be responsible for government policy towards European security; defence and international security; the Falkland Islands; polar regions; migration; protocol; human resources; OSCE and Council of Europe; relations with Parliament; British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Sovereign Base Areas in Cyprus; and FCO finance, knowledge and technology.
The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) is a ministerial department of the Government of the United Kingdom. It is headed by the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. Its stated priorities are to reduce re-offending and protect the public, to provide access to justice, to increase confidence in the justice system, and to uphold people's civil liberties. The Secretary of State is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary, the court system, prisons, and probation in England and Wales, with some additional UK-wide responsibilities, e.g., the UK Supreme Court and judicial appointments by the Crown. The department is also responsible for areas of constitutional policy not transferred in 2010 to the Deputy Prime Minister, human rights law, and information rights law across the UK.
In Australia, a departmental secretary is the most senior public servant of an Australian Government or state government department. They are typically responsible for the day-to-day actions of a department.
The Department of Home Affairs is the Australian Government interior ministry with responsibilities for national security, law enforcement, emergency management, border control, immigration, refugees, citizenship, transport security and multicultural affairs. The portfolio also includes federal agencies such as the Australian Border Force and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. The Home Affairs portfolio reports to the Minister for Home Affairs, currently held by Clare O'Neil, and was led by the Secretary of the Department of Home Affairs, Mike Pezzullo, until his sacking in November 2023 for breaching the code of conduct. In 2022, the Australian Federal Police, Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission and Australian Transaction and Analysis Center were de-merged from the department and moved to the Attorney General portfolio.
The Minister of State for Climate, Environment and Energy is a mid-level position in His Majesty's Government based in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.
The Sunak ministry began on 25 October 2022 when Rishi Sunak was invited by King Charles III to succeed Liz Truss as prime minister of the United Kingdom. Truss resigned as leader of the Conservative Party the previous day after Sunak was elected unopposed as her successor. The Sunak ministry was formed from the 2019 Parliament of the United Kingdom, as a Conservative majority government. Sunak reshuffled his cabinet twice, first in February 2023 and later in November 2023.