| Post: | Secretary of State for Justice |
| Insignia: | Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government) (2022).svg |
| Insigniacaption: | Royal Arms of His Majesty's Government |
| Department: | Ministry of Justice |
| Incumbent: | Shabana Mahmood |
| Incumbentsince: | 5 July 2024 |
| Style: | Justice Secretary The Right Honourable |
| Type: | Minister of the Crown |
| Precursor: | Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs |
| Status: | Secretary of State |
| Reports To: | The Prime Minister |
| Seat: | Westminster |
| Nominator: | The Prime Minister |
| Appointer: | The Monarch |
| Termlength: | At His Majesty's Pleasure |
| Salary: | £159,038 per annum [1] (including £86,584 MP salary)[2] |
| First: | The Lord Falconer |
| Formation: | 9 May 2007 |
The secretary of state for justice is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with responsibility for the Ministry of Justice. The incumbent is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Since the office's inception, the incumbent has concurrently been appointed Lord Chancellor.
The officeholder works alongside the other justice ministers. The corresponding shadow minister is the shadow secretary of state for justice, and the performance of the secretary of state is also scrutinised by the Justice Select Committee.[3]
According to what is generally known as a justice minister in many other countries, the justice secretary's remit includes:
The then Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, was appointed to the post of Secretary of State for Justice when it was created in 2007. The office of the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs was abolished, along with the Department for Constitutional Affairs. The home secretary, John Reid, told Parliament that future secretaries of state for justice would be MPs rather than peers.
| Secretary of State | Term of office | Political party | Government | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charles Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton[4] | 9 May 2007 | 28 June 2007 | Labour | Blair | |||
| Jack Straw[5] [6] | 28 June 2007 | 6 May 2010 | Brown | ||||
| Kenneth Clarke[7] | 12 May 2010 | 6 September 2012 | Conservative | Cameron-Clegg | |||
| Chris Grayling[8] | 6 September 2012 | 8 May 2015 | |||||
| Michael Gove[9] | 8 May 2015 | 14 July 2016 | Cameron | ||||
| Liz Truss[10] | 14 July 2016 | 11 June 2017 | May | ||||
| David Lidington[11] [12] | 11 June 2017 | 8 January 2018 | May | ||||
| David Gauke[13] | 8 January 2018 | 24 July 2019 | |||||
| Robert Buckland[14] | 24 July 2019 | 15 September 2021 | Johnson | ||||
| Johnson | |||||||
| Dominic Raab[15] | 15 September 2021 | 6 September 2022 | |||||
| Brandon Lewis | 6 September 2022 | 25 October 2022 | Truss | ||||
| Dominic Raab | 25 October 2022 | 21 April 2023 | Sunak | ||||
| Alex Chalk | 21 April 2023 | 5 July 2024 | |||||
| Shabana Mahmood | 5 July 2024 | Incumbent | Labour | Starmer | |||