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What are the different types of minister?

The most senior government ministers, except the prime minister, are secretaries of state. Two senior ministers carry different titles: the chancellor of the exchequer – the senior minister at HM Treasury – and the lord chancellor, though the latter is currently held in conjunction with the secretary of state for justice.

Beneath secretaries of state are two ranks of junior ministers: ministers of state and parliamentary under secretaries. While ministers of state are politically senior to parliamentary under secretaries, they are constitutionally similar and the responsibilities of both are delegated from the secretary of state.

Most junior ministers are given a title to signal both their policy responsibility in a department and the government’s policy priorities – such as the minister of state for crime and policing in the Home Office and the parliamentary under secretary of state for prevention, public health and primary care in the Department of Health and Social Care.

Whips are also ministerial positions but serve different functions to senior and junior ministers. Parliamentary private secretaries are unpaid and act as departmental assistants to ministers, being the eyes and ears of the minister in parliament and communicating with the backbenches. They are required to vote with the government but are not ministers.

How are ministers appointed?

Ministers are ceremonially appointed by the Queen, on the advice of the prime minister. The allocation and organisation of portfolios for secretaries of state is decided by the prime minister, and is published online. Ministers can be chosen from either the House of Commons or the House of Lords.

Ministers are chosen for a range of reasons – as a reward, to build allies, to signal a shift in policy or, sometimes, on assessment of objective performance. The appointment process of junior ministers has been criticised as “random and arbitrary”.

Sometimes prime ministers make changes to the structure of government departments. This can change the portfolio of ministers, even in departments which do not change. For instance, after Theresa May’s departmental restructuring in 2016, skills, higher education and the apprenticeship levy were brought into the Department for Education, making the secretary of state for education responsible for policy areas previously outside of their control.

How many ministers are there?

The legal maximum number of paid ministers is 109, including the prime minister, as set out in the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975. However, some ministers are unpaid.

As of March 2021, there are 116 ministers in total (not counting Suella Braverman, who is currently on maternity leave).

There are 16 unpaid ministers – although four of them receive salaries in other government capacities, mainly as whips – including one unpaid cabinet minister: Amanda Milling MP, who is minister without portfolio (and Conservative party chairman, a party rather than government position).

Number of paid ministers allowed

23

Current 22 paid

Current 1 unpaid 1 Including Cabinet ministers and lord chancellor

50

Current 50 paid

Current 8 unpaid

Including Cabinet ministers, ministers of state, and other ministers heading government departments

83

Current 82 paid

Current 13 unpaid

Cabinet ministers, ministers of state, other ministers heading government departments, and Including parliamentary secretaries 3

Current 3 paid

Current 0 unpaid

Including Law officers

22

Current 21 paid

Current 1 unpaid

Including Whips

Number of paid Current Current Including ministers allowed paid unpaid

23 22 1 Cabinet ministers and lord chancellor

Cabinet ministers, ministers of state, and other ministers heading 50 50 8 government departments Cabinet ministers, ministers of state, other ministers heading 83 82 13 government departments, and parliamentary secretaries 3 3 0 Law officers 22 21 1 Whips

2 UK government ministers (Updated: 13 Sep 2021) [2] [3]

[4]

The Ministerial Other Maternity Allowances Act 2021 – which was introduced to allow attorney general Suella Braverman to go on maternity leave – gives the prime minister the power to designate a pregnant minister as ‘minister on leave’. He can appoint someone to temporarily fill the vacant role and the minister on leave can continue to receive an allowance without counting towards the statutory limit on the number of paid ministers. The designation automatically lapses after six months.

The number of cabinet [5] ministers has remained almost the same since 1979 but the number of junior ministers has increased from 62 to 71 (excluding whips but including ministers who attend cabinet but are not full members.) The number of junior ministers who are MPs has increased from 51 to 58. The number sitting in the House of Lords has increased from 11 to 13. Two members of the House of Lords are currently cabinet ministers: Baroness Evans of Bowes Park, who is lord privy seal and leader of the house, and Lord David Frost, who is minister of state for the Cabinet Office

What do cabinet ministers do? [6]

Secretaries of state, as the head of departments, are responsible for leading departments, approving key decisions, developing policy objectives and monitoring their progress. As Caroline Spelman [7], former secretary of state for the environment put it, “the secretary of state carries all the responsibility. It is no good blaming other people for something that goes wrong”. Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd [8] echoed a similar sentiment, saying "the mistakes that the government had made, and that the Home Office had made, required the resignation of the home secretary, irrespective of my own mistakes".

Beyond their policy work, cabinet ministers are also expected to answer questions in parliament and in front of select committees [9], take legislation through parliament, build relationships with backbenchers, and negotiate with other parts of government .

While most ministers will work in government departments, there can also be a minister without portfolio, who will not work in a government department but is often responsible for a specific priority – Baroness Warsi [10], for instance, was given responsibility across multiple policy areas, like foreign policy and constitutional affairs.

Some ministerial titles – such as lord privy seal or the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster – relate to historic roles. The posts are largely ceremonial, and ministers appointed to these titles will normally be given a wider portfolio of work such as being minister for the Cabinet Office or leader of the House.

What do junior ministers do? [11]

The roles of ministers of state and parliamentary under secretaries can vary depending on the size of the departments, but often considerably more responsibility is delegated to ministers of state. This is at the discretion of the secretary of state. As well as their direct policy responsibilities, a lot of the work of junior ministers is “unglamorous” and “an awful lot of the routine stuff, the nuts and bolts”, as Robert Neil [12], a former local government minister described it. This involves dealing with correspondence, taking questions in and guiding bills 3 through parliament.

Many government departments have a minister in the House of Lords who represents the government in the upper House to guide legislation through that chamber. The territorial offices – the Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales Offices – currently do not have Lords ministers. Beyond this legislative work, ministers are also expected to maintain relationships with public bodies and external organisations.

Some junior ministers also attend cabinet at the discretion of the prime minister. Under Boris Johnson, the chief secretary to the Treasury (Steve Barclay); the leader of the House of Commons (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the chief whip (Mark Spencer) and the attorney general [13] (currently Michael Ellis, whilst Suella Braverman is on maternity leave) all also attend cabinet.

What do joint ministers do? [14]

Some junior ministers are joint ministers [15], working across two or more departments. The Foreign Office and the Department for International Development [16], before their merger into the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office [17] in September 2020, had an entirely joint junior ministerial team. There are currently a number of joint ministers across other departments (11), and a number of junior ministers who are also whips [18] (4).

Joint ministers across government following February 2020 reshuffle (Updated: 08 Apr 2021) [20] [21]

[22]

These jobs can allow ministers to break down any divides that exist between different parts of government. As a minister Jo Swinson [23] was responsible for equalities policy, an area shared between the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. She said that double- hatting helped “in preventing the silo mentality”.

However, other ministers working across two departments have found that it adds to the difficulty of the job. Damian Green [24], who worked as a junior minister in both the Home Office and Ministry of Justice during the coalition, said that “most of all you are trying to work to two bosses who may well have two different agendas, and indeed there is an inherent tension between the home secretary and the justice secretary whoever it is.” (Sam Gyimah [25] also had some interesting insights)

How are they held accountable? [26]

Secretaries of state are accountable [27] to parliament for the powers of their department, for instance by answering questions in the chamber or appearing in front of select committees.

Junior ministers are also responsible to parliament, but ultimate accountability lies with their secretary of state. All ministers serve at the discretion of the prime minister and can be dismissed or reshuffled [28] for any reason.

Ministers of all ranks are bound by collective responsibility [29] – meaning that once the government has decided a collective position, all ministers must abide by it and vote together. Ministers who cannot abide by this are expected to resign, as a number of Theresa May’s ministers did in 2018 due to their opposition to her Brexit deal. Ministers who vote against the government would normally be sacked or asked to resign.

The general expectations of the conduct of ministers is in the Ministerial Code [30]. A breach of the code can be investigated at the discretion of the prime minister. Any subsequent demand for resignation is also at the 4 discretion of the prime minister. A 2020 investigation concluded that home secretary Priti Patel had breached the code because it found evidence that she had bullied staff. However, prime minister Boris Johnson did not ask her to resign.

Update date: Thursday, April 8, 2021

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