The shadow secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, commonly called the shadow foreign secretary, is a position within the UK official opposition shadow cabinet that deals mainly with issues surrounding the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United ...

. If elected, the person serving as shadow foreign secretary may be designated to serve as the new foreign secretary. The current Shadow Secretary of State of foreign, commonwealth and development affairs is

Priti Patel Dame Priti Sushil Patel (born 29 March 1972) is a British politician who has served as Shadow Foreign Secretary since November 2024, having previously served as Home Secretary from 2019 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, she was Secr ...

. The shadow secretary (usually with one or more junior shadow ministers) holds the secretary of state for foreign, commonwealth and development affairs and other FCDO ministers to account in

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. Although

DFID The Department for International Development (DFID) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, ministerial department of the government of the United Kingdom, from 1997 to 2020. It was responsible for administering foreign aid ...

and the role of

international development secretary The minister of state for development, formerly the minister of state for development and Africa and the secretary of state for international development, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom. The offic ...

were abolished by the second Johnson government in 2020, the shadow secretary of state did not have responsibility for development until Lammy was appointed in November 2021. His predecessor,

Lisa Nandy Lisa Eva Nandy (born 9 August 1979) is a British Labour Party politician serving as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport since 2024. She has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Wigan constituency since 2010. Nandy previ ...

, served alongside the

shadow secretary of state for international development The shadow cabinet minister for international development is the lead spokesperson for the United Kingdom's His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, Official Opposition on issues related to international aid, most notably to the Third World. The shad ...

Preet Gill Preet Kaur Gill (born 21 November 1972) is a British Labour Co-op politician who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Edgbaston since 2017. She served as Shadow Secretary of State for International Development between April 2020 ...

. This however is no longer the case after the

November 2021 British shadow cabinet reshuffle On 29 November 2021, Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom, carried out a reshuffle of his shadow cabinet. The slimmed down shadow cabinet, was seen to be Starmer creating a top team in his own image. Considered a surpr ...

List of shadow foreign secretaries

Notes

References

Official Opposition (United Kingdom) Long stubs with short prose {{UK-poli-stub