Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Responsibilities
The Foreign Secretary has overall responsibility for the work of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, with a particular focus on:
- Strategy Directorate
- national security
- intelligence
- honours
- Europe
Current role holder
The Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP
Dominic Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and First Secretary of State on 24 July 2019. He was first elected Conservative MP for Esher and Walton in May 2010.
Political career
Dominic was Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from July to November 2018.
He was previously Minister of State for Housing at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from 9 January 2018 to 9 July 2018.
He was Minister of State at the Ministry of Justice from 12 June 2017 to 9 January 2018. Dominic served as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Minister for Human Rights) at the Ministry of Justice from 2015 to 2016.
Education
Dominic went to Dr Challoner’s Grammar School, and studied law at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford and for a Masters at Cambridge, winning the Clive Parry Prize for International Law.
Career before politics
Dominic started his career as a business lawyer at City law firm Linklaters, working on project finance, international litigation and competition law. He also spent time on secondments at Liberty (the human rights NGO) and in Brussels advising on EU and WTO law.
Dominic later worked at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office between 2000 and 2006 on a range of issues from investor protection to war crimes policy.
Personal life
Dominic is married with 2 children.
Previous holders of this role
Find out more about previous holders of this role in our past Secretaries of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs section.
Announcements
Subscriptions
- China’s proposed new security law for Hong Kong: joint statement
- Bus, plane… and horseback: how the Foreign Office helped a British traveller return home
- Joint Statement from the UK, Australia and Canada on Hong Kong
- Coronavirus (COVID-19) and regional security: UK statement on Foreign Ministers' meeting
- Foreign Secretary's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 18 May 2020
- 30,000 stranded Brits returned to the UK on Government charter flights
- Foreign Secretary's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 7 May 2020
- UK condemns cyber actors seeking to benefit from global coronavirus pandemic
- Foreign Secretary's statement on coronavirus (COVID-19): 5 May 2020
- World Press Freedom Day 2020: E3 and Netherlands Foreign Ministers' statement