The law officers of the crown are senior ministers who serve as the UK government’s chief legal advisers. They are qualified and experienced lawyers, typically MPs or members of the House of Lords, who are appointed by the prime minister.

The law officers hold a unique and constitutionally sensitive position. They are political members of the government who are expected to support its agenda, but they are also independent guardians of the rule of law. Their primary duty is to ensure that the government acts lawfully and to provide impartial, objective legal advice, even when that advice may be politically unwelcome.

The law officers of the crown

The law officers are supported by a small government department, the Attorney General’s Office (AGO). There are three main law officers for the UK government.

The attorney general for England and Wales

The attorney general is the government’s chief legal adviser and is typically a member of the cabinet. They provide advice to the cabinet and individual ministers on the legality of policy and legislation.

The attorney general also holds the separate office of advocate general for Northern Ireland.

Ellies Reeves was appointed attorney general in July 2026, succeeding Lord Hermer.

Hermer was appointed to the post of attorney general in July 2024, following the Labour Party’s victory at the recent general election. To facilitate his appointment to this role, Hermer was created a life peer and sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords. He was the first person to have not served in either the commons or the Lords before becoming attorney general in over a century. Hermer was a practising KC before his appointment.

The solicitor general for England and Wales

The solicitor general is the attorney general’s deputy. They support the attorney in all their functions and can carry out any of the attorney’s duties on their behalf.

Ellies Reeves was appointed as solicitor general in September 2025.

The advocate general for Scotland

The advocate general is the UK government’s chief adviser on Scots law. The role was created by the Scotland Act 1998 to provide legal advice to UK government departments on matters such as the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament and other issues arising from devolution.

Baroness Smith of Cluny was appointed as advocate general for Scotland in August 2024.

What do the law officers do?

The primary role of the law officers is to advise the government on the legality of its proposed policies and actions, ensuring it acts within the law and upholds the rule of law.

The ministerial code states that the law officers “must be consulted in good time before the government is committed to critical decisions involving legal considerations.”

The cabinet manual, which sets out the main laws, rules and conventions affecting the conduct and operation of government, outlines that the law officers “have a role in ensuring the lawfulness and constitutional propriety of legislation.”

Lord Hermer, during his tenure as attorney general, has emphasised his role as an effective guardian of the rule of law. In January 2025, he told the commons justice select committee that the government must “explain” its importance “more than ever before”. Hermer described the threat posed by populism as “one of the most profound challenges of our age”.

In April 2025, Hermer said the UK should celebrate the creation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as a moment of “national pride”.

The attorney general has ministerial oversight of, and works alongside, the Government Legal Department (GLD). The GLD has more than 3,400 employees, around 2,600 of whom are solicitors or barristers. The attorney also has ministerial oversight of the UK’s main prosecuting authorities, including the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).

The attorney general can refer criminal sentences to the court of appeal if they appear “unduly lenient.” Under the unduly lenient sentence (ULS) scheme, anyone can request a review of a crown court sentence by the Attorney General’s Office if they believe it is too lenient. The review is ultimately conducted by the law officers, and if they agree the sentence appears unduly lenient, they may ask the court of appeal to review it.

Section 36 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 outlines that, in the event of an appeal under the ULS scheme, the court of appeal may “quash any sentence” or “pass such sentence as they think appropriate for the case”.

A sentence is said to be unduly lenient “where it falls outside the range of sentences which the judge, applying his mind to all the relevant factors, could reasonably consider appropriate”

The attorney general must also give consent for a limited number of prosecutions to proceed, such as those under the Official Secrets Act.

Law officers may personally represent the government and the crown in major, constitutionally significant court cases, both in UK courts and international courts.

Moreover, when ministers become involved in legal proceedings in a personal capacity, they are expected to seek the guidance of the law officers. The law officers should also be notified if a minister is a defendant or a witness in an action.

As parliamentarians, the law officers unavoidably play a political role. In January 2026, Hermer addressed the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) to urge unity amid speculation over a potential leadership challenge.

Hermer told Labour MPs: “What we are achieving as a government is radical, deeply principled and nothing short of an attempt to rework the state, so it is fairer and more equal for all.”

The law officers’ convention: confidential legal advice

By long-standing constitutional convention, the fact that the law officers have (or have not) provided advice on a particular matter, and the content of that advice, is not disclosed outside of government without their consent.

The ministerial code states: “The fact that the law officers have advised or have not advised, and the content of their advice, must not be disclosed outside government without their authority.”

This convention, known as the law officers’ convention, is considered vital to good government. It ensures that ministers can seek and receive frank, impartial legal advice in confidence, which is essential for proper decision-making.

However, it has been observed that the convention can stymie effective scrutiny of government decisions. In January 2025, Andrew Slaughter, the chair of the justice select committee, raised concerns that the conventions makes it “difficult to join up the dots” as to whether the government is earnestly trying to follow the rule of the law or just find ways around it.

Slaughter said: “If we ask you [the attorney general], you will say, ‘It’s not something I can discuss’, and if we ask ministers about it, whom you may or may not be advising, they will say, ‘That’s a matter for the law officers.’”

Lord Hermer, appearing before the committee as attorney general, also refused to answer questions on whether the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, would be enforceable in UK courts. He argued that responding to the question would effectively reveal whether the government had sought or received legal advice on the matter, and that disclosing this would itself breach the convention.

While the convention is strong, it can be waived in exceptional circumstances if it is deemed to be in the wider public interest. A notable example was the publication of the attorney general’s advice on the legality of the 2003 Iraq War.

Law officer salaries: how much does the attorney general earn?

• Attorney general (if member of commons): £188,354 (actual) – comprising an MP’s salary and a frozen claimed ministerial salary of £94,450. (Legal entitlement for ministerial salary is £100,819).
• Solicitor general: £151,866 (actual) – comprising an MP’s salary and a frozen claimed ministerial salary of £57,962. (Legal entitlement for ministerial salary is £62,368).

The 2003 Iraq War legal advice controversy

The most significant test of the law officers’ role in recent political history was the legal advice provided by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, on the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The episode raised questions about how the attorney general’s role as an independent guardian of the rule of law interacted with the government’s agenda, pursued by Tony Blair as prime minister.

After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, a US-led coalition including the UK began military action in Afghanistan as part of the ‘war on terror’. In January 2002, US president George W Bush identified Iraq as part of the “axis of evil”.

In his state of union address, Bush declared: “By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred…

“Our war on terror is well begun, but it is only begun. This campaign may not be finished on our watch, yet it must be and it will be waged on our watch.”

In September 2002, Bush addressed the United Nations General Assembly, warning Iraq that military action will be unavoidable if it does not comply with UN resolutions on disarmament.

Mere weeks later, the UK published a dossier which claimed that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. It claimed that Iraq could deploy weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes of an order to do so. In the foreword, Blair declared that the issue was a “current and serious threat to the UK national interest”.

He added: “We must ensure that he does not get to use the weapons he has, or get hold of the weapons he wants.”

The UN Security Council then unanimously passed resolution 1441 to give Iraq “a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations”. In the following year, however, the UN failed to find any weapons of mass destruction after 700 inspections.

On 25th February 2003, the US and the UK submitted a draft resolution to the UN arguing that Iraq had missed its “final opportunity” to disarm peacefully. France, Germany and Russia submitted a rival proposal to the council calling for further weapons inspections as an alternative to military action. In March, France announced it would join Russia in vetoing a proposed UN resolution which gave Iraq until 17 March to disarm.

Britain, the United States and Spain, having all promoted the proposed resolution, later abandoned it in the face of opposition. Bush responded by giving Iraq leader Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq or face war.

The central legal question therefore became whether military action against Iraq was lawful without a second, explicit United Nations Security Council resolution (UNSCR) authorising the use of force.

The government’s legal case rested on the interpretation of existing resolutions, primarily UNSCR 1441; this resolution had offered Iraq a “final opportunity to comply” with its disarmament obligations.

Lord Goldsmith’s confidential advice, delivered to the prime minister on 7 March 2003, raised doubts about the legality of war without a second resolution, stating this was the safest legal course.

This advice warned that the “language of resolution 1441… leaves the position unclear”. Goldsmith advised that while he could make a “reasonable case” for military action, he advised that “the safest legal course would be to secure the adoption of a further resolution to authorise the use of force”.

He stated: “I accept that a reasonable case can be made that resolution 1441 is capable in principle of reviving the authorisation in 678 without a further resolution…

“However, the argument that resolution 1441 alone has revived the authorisation to use force in resolution 678 will only be sustainable if there are strong factual grounds for concluding that Iraq has failed to take the final opportunity.”

This advice, which was not shared with the cabinet, did not become public until April 2005.

Goldsmith’s final piece of public advice was provided to parliament in a written answer on 17 March 2003 on the eve of the invasion, was unequivocal. It stated that: “Authority to use force against Iraq exists from the combined effect of Resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. All of these resolutions were adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows the use of force for the express purpose of restoring international peace and security.”

Goldsmith’s nine-paragraph statement was considered crucial in persuading many MPs to vote in favour of authorising military action on 18 March.

The government’s motion, approved by 412 votes to 149, noted “the opinion of the attorney general that, Iraq having failed to comply and Iraq being at the time of Resolution 1441 and continuing to be in material breach, the authority to use force under Resolution 678 has revived and so continues today”.

The invasion of Iraq – Operation Iraqi Freedom – began on 20 March 2003.

The leak of Goldsmith’s confidential advice in April 2005, during the general election campaign, represented a damaging blow to Blair’s government. BBC News reported that Goldsmith had “cast doubt on the legality of the war against Iraq without a second UN resolution”.

Blair denied that the advice amounted to a declaration that the Iraq War was illegal, and defended the decision not to circulate it to the cabinet.

He told a special election-time programme: “We had the attorney general there at cabinet, and he was able to tell people his opinion and explain his reasoning, answer any questions that they had.”

The prime minister added: “Now I totally understand why there are people in the audience who very, very strongly disagree with my decision to take this country to war in Iraq.

“All I can say to you is this: it’s not a matter of the attorney general’s advice, because it has been shown that the advice said that it was lawful, neither is it a matter of misusing the intelligence, there have been four inquiries into that.

“It is, however, a question of a difficult decision that I had to take. Was it better to leave Saddam in power, or put him in prison? I think it was better to put him in prison.”

On 6 July 2016, the findings of the Iraq Inquiry, chaired by Sir John Chilcot, were published after seven years of investigation. The 2.6 million-word report – longer than the King James Version of the Bible, the complete works of William Shakespeare, and Tolstoy’s War and Peace put together – provided a searing indictment of the intelligence failures, shaky legal rationale, miscalculations, inadequate military preparation and exaggerated public statements that led to the UK’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Chilcot did not reach a view on the legality of the war, saying this could only be assessed by a “properly constituted and internationally recognised court”. But the report found “that the circumstances in which it was decided that there was a legal basis for UK military action were far from satisfactory.”

The attorney general and Brexit: Geoffrey Cox’s tenure

Geoffrey Cox, who held the post of attorney general from 2018 to 2020, was one of the more visible (and vocal) occupants of the office. His tenure highlighted the tension between the attorney general’s role as a cabinet minister bound by collective responsibility, and their responsibilities as the government’s lead law officer.

In December 2018, Cox’s legal advice on the Brexit deal negotiated by Theresa May as prime minister was leaked to the Sunday Times. It confirmed the worst fears of those pro-Brexit voices opposed to the agreement: that Britain could be trapped “indefinitely” in a customs union with Brussels under the terms of the deal, as a consequence of the “backstop” arrangement with the European Union.

The backstop was the agreement’s proposed solution to the Irish border problem. The mechanism, designed to maintain an open border on the island of Ireland in any Brexit scenario, provided for a UK-wide customs union with the EU, covering all goods (except for fish). The backstop would apply indefinitely, until the UK and EU agreed on a different arrangement. The measure, described by its proponents as an “all-weather insurance policy”, was a safety net in the event that no formal deal could be reached on trade and security arrangements. It avoided a customs border down the Irish Sea – a. outcome May insisted that no prime minister “could ever agree”.

In January 2019, Cox took to the commons dispatch box to defend the government’s Brexit deal, negotiated by Theresa May as prime minister. Cox warned MPs that if they did not accept the deal, they risked condemning Britain to the chaos of a no-deal Brexit. “It would be the height of irresponsibility for any legislator to contemplate with equanimity such a situation”, he said.

Cox added: “What are you playing at? What are you doing? You are not children in the playground. You are legislators, and this is your job.”

The main government motion was rejected by 432 votes to 202 – a majority of 230. This represented the largest defeat for a sitting government in modern parliamentary history.

In February 2019, Cox was later placed in charge of negotiating changes to the Northern Ireland backstop. BBC Newsnight politics editor Nick Watt commented that this role meant Cox now held “the fate of Theresa May’s premiership in his hands”.

Cox was reported to have advised Boris Johnson, shortly into his tenure as prime minister, that his decision to prorogue parliament in the latter months of 2019, one of the more controversial episodes in the years-long Brexit saga, was “lawful” – only for the supreme court to rule otherwise.

Johnson had insisted that the five-week suspension, beginning 9 September, was to allow the government to set out a new legislative agenda in a queen’s speech when MPs return to parliament. Prorogation in order to secure a ‘no deal’ Brexit – the default legal position under EU law’s Article 50 process – had been a point of debate in the 2019 Tory leadership contest. This strategy, it was suggested, would prevent MPs from legislating to block a no deal Brexit, tabling a vote of no confidence in the government, or introducing a motion to trigger an early election.

On 24 September 2019, the supreme court unanimously ruled that Johnson’s advice to the Queen was unlawful because it had the effect of frustrating parliament “or preventing the ability of parliament to carry out its constitutional functions.”

Minutes of a telephone conference call between cabinet ministers, leaked to Sky News, suggested Cox had deemed prorogation in the circumstances as “lawful and within the constitution”, and that accusations of “unlawfulness or constitutional outrage were motivated by political considerations.”

Keir Starmer, then the shadow Brexit secretary, called on Cox to “consider his position” as attorney general and “at the very least” make a statement to MPs.

Upon parliament’s return, Scottish National Party (SNP) MP Joanna Cherry was granted an urgent question on the attorney general’s advice. Cherry urged Cox to publish the legal advice he gave to Johnson on the subject of prorogation.

Cox insisted the prorogation had been pursued “in good faith”.

He said: “At all times the government acted in good faith and in the belief that its approach was both lawful and constitutional.”

Cox also denied calls for him to step down, saying: “If every time I lost a case I was called upon to resign, I would probably have never had a practice.”

Cox framed his remarks around a virulent critique of the position adopted by opposition MPs. He accused them of failing to agree on a means of the UK leaving the EU, while repeatedly preventing the House of Commons from dissolving for an election.

In a politically charged speech, he declared: “This parliament is a dead parliament. It should no longer sit. It has no moral right to sit on these green benches…

“They don’t like to hear it, Mr Speaker. Twice they have been asked to let the electorate decide upon whether they should be allowed to sit in their seats, while they block 17.4 million people’s votes. This parliament is a disgrace.”

He added: “This parliament should have the courage to face the electorate but it won’t, because so many of them are really all about preventing us from leaving the European Union at all.

“But the time is coming, Mr Speaker, when even these turkeys won’t be able to prevent Christmas!”

Cox’s speech set the scene for a series of angry exchanges. Barry Sheerman, the Labour MP for Huddersfield, hit back: “For a man like him, a party like his, and a leader like this prime minister to talk about morals and morality is a disgrace.”

On 13 February 2020, Cox was dismissed from his post in a cabinet reshuffle and replaced by Suella Braverman. In his letter of resignation, Cox made it clear that he had been removed on Johnson’s request. He referred moreover to his efforts to deliver “candid and independent” advice to the prime minister.

He wrote: “I bluntly told the House of Commons in September that they risked incurring the wrath of the British people by continually frustrating the result of the referendum, and that a reckoning at the polls would come.

“It is very good news for our country and a source of great personal satisfaction to me that you have so emphatically proven those predictions to be correct.”

The attorney general’s role in the collapse of the first Labour government

In the 1920s, the conduct of the then attorney general, Sir Patrick Hastings, helped lead to the collapse of the first Labour government – specifically, over its decision not to prosecute J. R. Campbell, the acting editor of the Workers’ Weekly, the official newspaper of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB).

On 25 July 1924, the newspaper published an “Open Letter to the Fighting Forces”. The article called on British soldiers to “let it be known that neither in a class war nor in a military war will you turn your guns on, your fellow workers, but instead will line up with your fellow workers in an attack upon the exploiters and capitalists, and will use your arms on the side of your own class.”

Hastings had initially advised the prosecution of Campbell under the Incitement to Mutiny Act of 1797.

A motion in the House of Commons, moved by former Liberal attorney general John Simon on 8 October 1924, called for a select committee to be “appointed to investigate and report upon the circumstances leading up to the withdrawal of the proceedings recently instituted by the Director of Public Prosecutions against Mr Campbell”.

Robert Horne, a Conservative/Unionist MP, warned that allowing legal decisions to be shaped by “political expediency” would undermine the rule of law. Horne, moving a Conservative vote of censure, stated: “Civilised communities can only enjoy full liberty if the political executive is excluded from interference with the mechanism of the administration of justice.”

A significant portion of the criticism was directed at a meeting held by the prime minister, which was seen as an unconstitutional intervention by the cabinet into the attorney general’s domain.

Sir Douglas Hogg, another Conservative MP, sought to highlight the apparently sudden reversal of the attorney general’s decision to proceed with a prosecution, questioning: “What had induced him to make that sudden alteration of opinion?”

The prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, stated that he considered the motion as a vote of confidence. The motion on establishing a select committee was passed by 364 votes to 198. This division amounted to the largest government defeat in the House of Commons until the vote on May’s withdrawal agreement on 16 January 2019.

Other examples of the attorney general in action

In April 1951, the attorney general, Hartley Shawcross, announced that he had decided not to prosecute the four Scottish students understood to be responsible for breaking into Westminster Abbey and removing the Stone of Scone from the coronation chair. Shawcross said that prosecuting would not be in the “public interest”.

He told MPs: “The clandestine removal of the stone from Westminster Abbey, the manner of its taking and the manifest disregard for the sanctity of the Abbey were vulgar acts of vandalism which have caused great distress and offence both in England and Scotland and have brought the individuals concerned in them into great disrepute.

“I do not think, however, that the public interest requires that I should direct criminal proceedings to be taken.”

The attorney general said he had “no desire to provide these individuals with the opportunity either of being regarded by their followers as martyrs if convicted, or as heroes if they are not convicted.”

In the wake of the Aberfan disaster (October 1966), which resulted in the deaths of 144 people, including 116 children, the attorney general, Elwyn Jones, warned that public comments on those matters now under investigation by the tribunal were “highly undesirable”. He advised that “such comments may have legal consequences which are, perhaps, not at present appreciated”.

Jones said there was a “danger in examination of potential witnesses on television and in the press”, maintaining that “the best means of ventilating opinion… if we are to get to the most effective result from this inquiry is by communication with the tribunal itself.”

Theresa May cited the attorney general’s advice when setting out her decision to authorise military airstrikes against Syria without first seeking parliamentary approval.

May stated: “When the cabinet met on Thursday, we considered the advice of the attorney general. Based on this advice, we agreed that it was not just morally right but also legally right to take military action, together with our closest allies, to alleviate further humanitarian suffering.”