House of Commons Justice Committee chair Andy Slaughter MP has been promoted to Solicitor General following Ellie Reeves KC MP’s elevation to Attorney General earlier in the week.
The promotion comes as new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham makes his final ministerial appointments after taking over from Sir Kier Starmer in Downing Street on Monday (20 July).
Slaughter, the MP for Hammersmith in London, will deputise for Reeves and will receive the customary appointment to King’s Counsel after appointment.
He was called to the Bar in 1993 and was a member of common law set Bridewell Chambers, before later moving to Lamb Chambers. A former leader of Hammersmith and Fulham Council, he has been an MP since 2005, serving as shadow justice minister under Ed Miliband, who is now foreign secretary.
Slaughter was also previously shadow Solicitor General before being dismissed by Sir Keir Starmer in 2023 for defying the opposition’s line on the Gaza conflict; Slaughter is a long-term supporter of Palestine, as a member of the All-Party Political Group on the Middle East.
He succeeded Sir Bob Neill MP as the chair of the Justice Select Committee in 2024, issuing critical reports about legal aid provision and scepticism on reforms to jury trials, calling for clearer evidence of their necessity, suggesting they may “offend our system of justice, of which we are all still very proud”.
Alongside Slaughter, Newcastle MP Catherine McKinnon – a former solicitor at what is now Womble Bond Dickinson – was appointed as a justice minister, having also served as shadow Solicitor General under Miliband and shadow Attorney General under Jeremy Corbyn. She resigned from the front bench in protest at Corbyn’s leadership in 2016.
A former education minister under the Starmer administration, she lost her job in a 2025 reshuffle, before being brought back to join Alex Norris MP and Sarah Sackman KC MP, the courts minister, who retained her role on courts reform following the reshuffle.
Sackman, who opened last year’s London International Disputes Week, has spoken about the need for reforms to litigation funding and UK support for legal technology.
Former Solicitor General Lucy Rigby KC MP, once a partner at Hausfeld, was demoted from her Cabinet role as chief secretary to serve as Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the third-ranking position at the department.
Baroness Smith of Cluny KC, the daughter of the late John Smith KC MP – who led the Labour party in opposition before Tony Blair’s premiership from 1997 to 2007 – also kept her role as Advocate General for Scotland.
Her reappointment comes following May’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, following which the first minister’s new appointees – Lord Advocate Ruth Charteris KC and Solicitor General for Scotland BJ Gill KC – were officially sworn in at Parliament House in June 2026, meaning both Scotland’s leading lawyers at Westminster and Holyrood are women.
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