Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Deputy prime minister is a title.[1][2][3] The position of deputy prime minister by itself carries no salary under the Ministerial and other Salaries Act 1975 and the holder has no right to automatic succession to the premiership.[4][5]

Successive monarchs have refused to officially recognise the position of deputy prime minister.[6][7][8] When Winston Churchill attempted to have Anthony Eden appointed deputy prime minister in 1942, George VI said that the 'office... does not exist' and that conferring the title may be seen as an attempt to designate the prime minister's successor and thus may restrict the monarch's royal prerogative.[6] However, Vernon Bogdanor has said that that argument holds little weight in the modern context, since the monarch no longer has any real discretion, and that, even in the past, a person acting as deputy prime minister had no real advantage to being appointed prime minister.[6]

The title is not always in use and the holder's responsibilities will vary depending on the circumstances.[9] Jonathan Kirkup and Steven Thornton suggest that there are multiple motivations behind a prime minister appointing a deputy: leader of a party in a coalition government, as their designated successor, to neuter or mollify a rival, because they are a 'safe pair of hands' and to create a 'balanced ticket'.[10] Philip Norton has written that there are two advantages to a prime minister of having a deputy prime minister (or first secretary of state): functional (to serve the prime minister free of departmental responsibilities, so they can do "correlation, co-ordination and chairmanship of committees" in the words of Rab Butler) and political (to send a signal as to the status of the holder).[11] Bogdanor, Rodney Brazier and Anthony Seldon also suggest that the title may be of use if a prime minister were to die or fall unable to exercise their functions.[6][12][13]

When the position has been in use in the past, the deputy prime minister has deputised for the prime minister at Prime Minister's Questions.[14]

Before World War II, while a minister was occasionally invited to deputise as prime minister when the prime minister was ill or abroad, no one was styled as such when the prime minister was in the country and physically able to run the government.[15] This changed in 1942 when Clement Attlee was appointed deputy prime minister, though such a designation was seen as an exceptional result of a coalition and the war.[16] The designation was because Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to demonstrate the importance of the Labour party in the coalition, not for any reasons relating to succession; he actually left written advice that the King should send for Anthony Eden if he were to die, not Attlee.[4]

After this, fearing a possible curtailment of the monarch's prerogative to choose a prime minister, no one was formally styled deputy prime minister (though there was often a senior minister generally regarded as such) until Michael Heseltine in 1995 was formally styled deputy prime minister.[17] John Prescott was formally styled as such under Tony Blair and remains the longest serving deputy prime minister.[2] Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg was deputy prime minister under David Cameron, in the Cameron-Clegg coalition between 2010 and 2015.[2] Later, Dominic Raab gained the title as part of Boris Johnson's 2021 reshuffle.[18] Thérèse Coffey was Liz Truss's deputy prime minister,[19] before Raab was reappointed to the role under Rishi Sunak in October 2022.[20] Following Raab's resignation, Oliver Dowden gained the title in April 2023, with the GOV.UK announcement notably listing Dowden separately to those who had had their appointments approved by the King.[21]

There is no set of offices permanently ready to house the deputy prime minister.[22] Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg maintained an office at the Cabinet Office headquarters, 70 Whitehall, which is linked to 10 Downing Street.[23] Clegg's predecessor, Prescott, maintained his main office at 26 Whitehall.[24]

The prime minister may also give them the use of a grace and favour country house.[22] While in office, Nick Clegg resided at his private residence in Putney and he shared Chevening House with First Secretary William Hague as a weekend residence.[25] Clegg's predecessor, John Prescott, used Dorneywood.[22]

The following people have held the title of deputy prime minister.[Note 1][26][27]

Deputy prime minister			Term of office		Ministerial offices held during tenure	Party	Ministry	Monarch (Reign)
		Clement Attlee MP for Limehouse	19 February 1942	23 May 1945	Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1942–1943) Lord President of the Council (1943–1945)	Labour	Churchill War	George VI (1936–1952)
		Michael Heseltine MP for Henley	5 July 1995	2 May 1997	First Secretary of State	Conservative	Major II	Elizabeth II (1952–2022)
		John Prescott MP for Kingston upon Hull East	2 May 1997	27 June 2007	Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions (1997–2001) First Secretary of State (2001–2007)	Labour	Blair I
							Blair II
							Blair III
		Nick Clegg MP for Sheffield Hallam	11 May 2010	8 May 2015	Lord President of the Council	Liberal Democrat	Cameron–Clegg
		Dominic Raab MP for Esher and Walton	15 September 2021	6 September 2022	Lord Chancellor Secretary of State for Justice	Conservative
		Thérèse Coffey MP for Suffolk Coastal	6 September 2022	25 October 2022	Secretary of State for Health and Social Care		Truss
								Charles III (2022–present)
		Dominic Raab MP for Esher and Walton	25 October 2022	21 April 2023	Lord Chancellor Secretary of State for Justice		Sunak
		Oliver Dowden MP for Hertsmere	21 April 2023	Incumbent	Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office

The prime minister's second-in-command has variably served as deputy prime minister, first secretary and de facto deputy and at other times prime ministers have chosen not to select a permanent deputy at all, preferring ad hoc arrangements.[16] It has also been suggested that the office of Lord President of the Council (which comes with leading precedence) has been intermittently used for deputies in the past.[28][2]

Lists

Anthony Eden is often described as Winston Churchill's deputy, though his appointment as deputy prime minister in 1951 was actually rejected by the King.

Picking out definitive deputies to the prime minister has been described as a highly problematic task.[29]

Bogdanor, in his 1995 publication The Monarchy and the Constitution, said that the following people had acted as deputy prime ministers (by this he meant they had chaired the Cabinet in the absence of the prime minister and chaired a number of key Cabinet Committees):[30]

Clement Attlee

Herbert Morrison

Anthony Eden

Rab Butler

George Brown

Michael Stewart

Reginald Maudling

Willie Whitelaw

Geoffrey Howe

In an academic article first published in 2015, Jonathan Kirkup and Stephen Thornton used five criteria to identify deputies: gazetted or styled in Hansard as deputy prime minister; 'officially' designated deputy prime minister by the prime minister; widely recognised by their colleagues as deputy prime minister; second in the ministerial ranking; and chaired the Cabinet or took Prime Minister's Questions in the prime minister's absence.[31] They said that the following people have the best claim to the position of deputy to the prime minister:[29]

Clement Attlee

Herbert Morrison

Anthony Eden

Rab Butler

George Brown

Michael Stewart

Willie Whitelaw

Geoffrey Howe

Michael Heseltine

John Prescott

Nick Clegg

They also said that the following three people would have a reasonable claim:[29]

Bonar Law

Edward Short

Michael Foot

Brazier has listed the following ministers as unambiguously deputy to or de facto deputies of the prime minister:[32]

Clement Attlee	1940–1945
Anthony Eden	1945 1951–1955
Rab Butler	1955–1963
George Brown	1964–1970
Reginald Maudling	1970–1972
Willie Whitelaw	1979–1988
Geoffrey Howe	1989–1990
Michael Heseltine	1995–1997
John Prescott	1997–2007
Nick Clegg	2010–2015
George Osborne	2015–2016
Damian Green	2017
David Lidington	2018–2019
Dominic Raab	2019–2022

Lord Norton of Louth has listed the following people as serving as deputy prime minister, but not being formally styled as such:[33]

Herbert Morrison	1945–1951
Anthony Eden	1951–1955
Rab Butler	1962–1963
Willie Whitelaw	1979–1988
Geoffrey Howe	1989–1990
David Lidington	2018–2019

Nobody has the right of automatic succession to the prime ministership.[34] However, it is generally considered that in the event of the death of the prime minister, it would be appropriate to appoint an interim prime minister, though there is some debate as to how to decide who this should be.[35] In 2021, Cabinet Secretary Simon Case suggested:[36]

[I]t would likely have to be a decision for Cabinet to nominate somebody who could step into the role of Prime Minister in the belief that they could fulfil that requirement and command a majority in the House. The sovereign would need to be given a rapid and clear recommendation by the Government on who to call on. By our estimation, and given the pressures of the job, we do not think you would want to leave it for more than 48 hours before identifying such a person.

When the prime minister is travelling, it is standard practice for a senior duty minister to be appointed who can attend to urgent business and meetings if required, though the prime minister remains in charge and updated throughout.[37] And, on 6 April 2020, when Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted into ICU, he asked First Secretary of State Dominic Raab "to deputise for him where necessary".[38]

• First Secretary of State
• Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party (UK)
• Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK)

• Brazier, Rodney (1988). "The deputy prime minister". Public Law.
• Brazier, Rodney (2020). Choosing a Prime Minister: The Transfer of Power in Britain. Oxford University Press.
• Bogdanor, Vernon (1995). The Monarchy and the Constitution. Clarendon Press.
• Hennessy, Peter (1995). The Hidden Wiring: Unearthing the British Constitution. Indigo.
• Kirkup, Jonathan; Thornton, Stephen (2017). "'Everyone needs a Willie': The elusive position of deputy to the British prime minister". British Politics. 12 (4): 492–520. doi:10.1057/bp.2015.42. S2CID 156861636.
• Norton, Philip (2016). "A temporary occupant of No.10? Prime Ministerial succession in the event of the death of the incumbent". Public Law.
• Norton, Philip (2020). Governing Britain: Parliament, Ministers and Our Ambiguous Constitution. Manchester University Press.
• Seldon, Anthony; Meakin, Jonathan; Thoms, Illias (2021). The Impossible Office? The History of the British Prime Minister. Cambridge University Press.
• Vennard, Andrew (2008). "Prime Ministerial succession". Public Law.