Cabinet rank

In the United Kingdom, the top three ministers after the Prime Minister are traditionally the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary. These four positions are referred to as the Great Offices of State. However, the high prestige of these positions has not always run with ministerial rank, as the ministerial ranking is decided by the Prime Minister alone – David Cameron, in his autobiography, takes a slightly different view, explaining that it "...combines seniority of post and the length of time as a cabinet minister to determine the rank of everyone present..."

Just as traditionally lower Cabinet jobs can be placed high, traditionally higher positions can be placed low in the rankings, such as when the then Secretary of State for Defence Bob Ainsworth was ranked the 3rd lowest ranking minister in Gordon Brown's cabinet.

Its importance is debated. Historian Peter Hennessy states that it "...matters more than one thinks in establishing the power of a Prime Minister in relation to his most senior colleagues". When the Prime Minister is unable to attend Cabinet or the chair and any deputy chair of a cabinet committee are absent, The Cabinet Manual states that the next most senior minister in the order of precedence should take the chair.[1]

Cameron says that the order of precedence was "...something we had never bothered with..." Additionally, in April 2020, when he was moved into intensive care for Covid-19, Boris Johnson asked Dominic Raab, as First Secretary of State, "to deputise for him where necessary",[2] but the ministerial ranking on the parliament.uk website at the time actually showed Sunak ranking above Raab.[3]

The current ministerial ranking, as of 24 January 2021, is as follows:[4]

• Orders of precedence in the United Kingdom