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Home > The Department > Department overview > Who does what? > The Ministerial Executive Board > Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Secretary of State and Lord Chancellor

9 May 2007: Responsibility for information on this page has passed from DCA to the Ministry of Justice

Lord Falconer of Thoroton

Responsibilities

The Secretary of State will deal personally with:

  • the resourcing of his Departments
  • major constitutional issues
  • appointments, including all judicial appointments
  • Royal, Church and Hereditary issues, and Lord Lieutenants
  • Privy Counsellors (other than Cabinet Ministers) who have addressed their query to the Secretary of State personally. Where a Privy Counsellor writes to another Minister by name that Minister may respond personally
  • correspondence with Cabinet Ministers, and the higher Judiciary

Biography

Lord Falconer of Thoroton was appointed as Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor in June 2003. He was called to the Bar (Inner Temple) in 1974 and was appointed Solicitor General in May 1997.

He served as Minister of State at the Cabinet Office from July 1998 to June 2001. In June 2001 he joined the Department for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, where he was appointed Minister for Housing, Planning and Regeneration. He moved to the Home Office in May 2002 as Minister of State for Criminal Justice, Sentencing and Law Reform.

He is married with three sons and one daughter.

Education

Trinity College, Glenalmond, and Queens' College, Cambridge.

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