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.

Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield wrote about the ministerial ranking, in his 2000 book The Prime Minister: The Office And Its Holders Since 1945 .