Ministerial ranking

The ministerial ranking is said by Peter Hennessy to be decided by the Prime Minister alone[1] and reportedly by the Cabinet Office Precedent Book as being wholly decided by the Prime Minister, "guided partly by tradition and partly by political and personal considerations".

[2] In his autobiography David Cameron said that it "...combines seniority of post and the length of time as a cabinet minister to determine the rank of everyone present".

[2] It has also been said that, upon his 1995 appointment as deputy prime minister and first secretary, Michael Heseltine also insisted that he became number two on the ministerial ranking.

[6] However, David Cameron has stated that it was "something we had never bothered with"[3] and Harold Macmillan has reportedly said that he would have preferred an order based on the traditional dignity of offices, deeming it "all rather nonsense".

[2] Additionally, in April 2020, when Boris Johnson was moved into intensive care with COVID-19, a government press release stated that he had asked First Secretary of State Dominic Raab "to deputise for him where necessary",[7] but the ministerial ranking on the parliament.uk website around the time showed Rishi Sunak technically ranking above Raab.