Who will replace Dominic Raab as Justice Secretary?
Dominic Raab has resigned from government and has made a vacancy as Minister of Justice.
Rishi Sunak is expected to hold a mini-reshuffle in the coming days to fill the cabinet gap – but who will he vote for?
Here are some of the most likely runners and drivers to replace Mr Raab, who runs the Justice Department.
Victoria Prentis
(Parliamentary TV)
The Attorney General does not have to be a lawyer, but lawyers are usually happy when they are.
Victoria Prentis, a senior barrister and King’s Counsel, is currently Attorney General and would be one of several logical choices to replace Mr Raab.
She has been an MP for Banbury since 2015 and has previously held ministerial posts with the DWP and Defra.
Victoria Atkins
(Parliamentary TV)
The Finance Minister of the Treasury is a trained lawyer and can boast of having prosecuted drug trafficking gangs. She also specialized in prosecuting fraud.
She has also held a number of relevant government mandates, including Minister for Prisons in the Ministry of Justice and Minister for Crime Protection and Vulnerability in the Ministry of the Interior.
MP for Louth and Horncastle since 2015.
Lucy Frazer
(PA Media)
The Minister of Culture is also a lawyer (indeed a KC) and would be a natural fit for the Minister of Justice.
As a former Attorney General for England and Wales, she also managed to ban upskirting via a Private Member’s Bill.
MP for South East Cambridgeshire since 2015, her appointment as Minister for Justice would mark her return to the Department where she served as Junior Secretary in 2018 and 2019.
Alex Chalk
(PA)
Chalk, another King’s Counsel, currently serves in the Defense Department’s Department of Defense.
However, previous government posts are universally titled Attorney General: he was Solicitor General for about a year in 2021 and 2022, and was also Secretary of State for Prisons and Probation and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Justice.
He has been MP for Cheltenham since 2015.
