# First Secretary of State

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 | Term of office | Other ministerial offices | Party | Ministry |
| R. A. Butler MP for Saffron Walden | 13 July 1962 | 18 October 1963 | | Conservative | Macmillan II |
| George Brown MP for Belper | 16 October 1964 | 11 August 1966 | Secretary of State for Economic Affairs | Labour | Wilson (I & II) |
| Michael Stewart MP for Fulham | 11 August 1966 | 6 April 1968 | Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs | Labour | Wilson (I & II) |
| Barbara Castle MP for Blackburn | 6 April 1968 | 19 June 1970 | Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity | Labour | Wilson (I & II) |
| Michael Heseltine MP for Henley | 20 July 1995 | 2 May 1997 | Deputy Prime Minister | Conservative | Major II |
| John Prescott MP for Kingston upon Hull East | 8 June 2001 | 27 June 2007 | Deputy Prime Minister | Labour | Blair II |
| John Prescott MP for Kingston upon Hull East | 8 June 2001 | 27 June 2007 | Deputy Prime Minister | Labour | Blair III |
| 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 | Brown |
| William Hague MP for Richmond (Yorks) | 12 May 2010 | 8 May 2015 | Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Leader of the House of Commons | Conservative | Cameron–Clegg (Con.–L.D.) |
| George Osborne MP for Tatton | 8 May 2015 | 13 July 2016 | Chancellor of the Exchequer | Conservative | Cameron II |
| Damian Green MP for Ashford | 11 June 2017 | 20 December 2017 | Minister for the Cabinet Office | Conservative | May II |
| Dominic Raab MP for Esher and Walton | 24 July 2019 | 15 September 2021 | Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs | Conservative | Johnson (I & II) |