Ministerial role

Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice

Organisations: Ministry of Justice
Current role holder: The Rt Hon David Lammy MP

Responsibilities

  • Oversight of all portfolios, policy, and Ministry of Justice strategy
  • Oversight of cross-cutting emergency issues, responses supported by other ministers according to portfolio
  • Oversight of international business and future relations with the EU
  • MoJ support for the Union.
  • Resourcing of the department
  • Functions of the Lord Chancellor
  • Judicial policy including pay, pensions and diversity (these and other operational decisions affecting the judiciary are reserved to the Lord Chancellor)
  • Corporate services

Current role holder

The Rt Hon David Lammy MP

David Lammy was appointed Lord Chancellor, Secretary of State for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister on 5 September 2025. He was previously Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs between 5 July 2024 and 5 September 2025. David was first elected as Labour MP for Tottenham at the age of 27 in June 2000.

David studied law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Law School and Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 1994.

David was appointed the Shadow Foreign Secretary in November 2021. He was previously the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice and the Shadow Lord Chancellor.

David served as a minister in the Labour government from 2001 to 2010 and was made a Privy Councillor in 2008. He was in several departments, including the Department of Health and the Department for Constitutional Affairs. He was Culture Minister at the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Higher Education and Intellectual Property Minister at the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills.

In 2016 to 2017, David led an independent review into treatment and outcomes of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people in the criminal justice system. He is the author of ‘Out of the ashes: Britain after the riots’ on the causes of the London 2011 riots, and ‘Tribes: how our need to belong can make or break society’ (2020).

David is on the Advisory Board for the European Council on Foreign Relations and is President of the British and Foreign School Society. He is also an Associate Tenant Barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and a Professor in Practice at London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Follow the Foreign Secretary on social media: @DavidLammy on X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

More about this person

Previous holders of this role

  1. The Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP

    2024 to 2025

  2. The Rt Hon Alex Chalk KC

    2023 to 2024

  3. The Rt Hon Dominic Raab

    2022 to 2023

  4. The Rt Hon Brandon Lewis CBE

    2022 to 2022

  5. The Rt Hon Dominic Raab

    2021 to 2022

  6. The Rt Hon Robert Buckland KC

    2019 to 2021

  7. The Rt Hon David Gauke

    2018 to 2019

  8. The Rt Hon David Lidington CBE

    2017 to 2018

  9. The Rt Hon Elizabeth Truss

    2016 to 2017

  10. The Rt Hon Michael Gove

    2015 to 2016

  11. The Rt Hon Chris Grayling

    2012 to 2015

  12. The Rt Hon Kenneth Clarke KC

    2010 to 2012