David Cameron returns: how non-MP, ex-PM will fit into Sunak's cabinet

David Cameron has made a shock return to government and public life as Britain's new foreign secretary.

The former prime minister has been out of frontline politics since 2016, after resigning in the wake of the Brexit referendum and then quitting as an MP soon afterwards.

Writing on X, formerly known as Twitter, Cameron said that although he may have "disagreed with some individual decisions" made recently by Rishi Sunak – in particular over the scrapping of the northern leg of HS2 – he believed the prime minister to be a "strong and capable" leader.

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Cameron has become Lord Cameron and joined the House of Lords to enable him to take up the position of foreign secretary.

Why is David Cameron returning to government? 

Rishi Sunak began a major reshuffle of his cabinet early on Monday morning by sacking his controversial home secretary Suella Braverman. Last week she published an explosive article in The Times, criticising the policing of pro-Palestinian protests. No.10 said the article was "not cleared" by Downing Street before it was published. 

After a highly charged weekend of protests, at which far-right groups clashed with police near the Cenotaph on Armistice Day, the prime minister removed Braverman from her post. Sunak replaced her with James Cleverly, who, it was reported, reluctantly relinquished his previous role as foreign secretary.

Cameron then took over from Cleverly as foreign secretary. It was considered a highly unusual move because Cameron is no longer an MP and neither – at least when he arrived in Downing Street this morning – did he hold a peerage.

It makes Cameron only the second former prime minister to return to a cabinet role after leaving office since the Second World War, the other being Alec Douglas-Home, who served as PM from 1963-64 and returned as foreign secretary in 1970.

How can a non-MP become a minister?

There is no requirement for a minister to sit in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords, although it is a "constitutional convention" that ministers sit in at least one House.

As the UK has no written constitution, these conventions are long-standing traditions rather than official "rules". 

In order to align with the traditions of parliament, Cameron has been given a barony of the UK for life, which will see him join the House of Lords.

It is still extremely unusual in modern times for a peer to be given one of the great offices of state. The last person to do so from the House of Lords was Lord Carrington, who was foreign secretary from 1979-82 under Margaret Thatcher.

Baron Cameron will be one of only two Lords in the current cabinet. The other is Lord True, who is the Leader of the House of Lords.

Why is having a peer in the cabinet controversial?

Concerns about appointing non-parliamentarians to cabinet roles were raised in 2008, when Labour prime minister Gordon Brown appointed a number of ministers directly to the House of Lords in order to create what he called a "government of all the talents". He also appointed ministers from the House of Lords.

It is a practice that also continued under subsequent governments. In 2015 Cameron was forced to defend his decision to give his former chief adviser Andrew Dunlop a peerage in order to make him a minister at the Scotland Office. It was most recently done in 2019 under Boris Johnson's administration when Nicky Morgan, who had stepped down as an MP, was appointed to the Lords in order to continue to serve as the culture secretary. 

Many see the appointment of unelected, non-parliamentarians as ministers as undemocratic, with peers being beyond the scrutiny of elected MPs in the Commons chamber. 

As Politico's Eleni Courea noted, as a peer Cameron "won't be able to answer UQs [urgent questions] or make ministerial statements to the Commons", and neither will his current deputy Lord Ahmad. 

In the past, this issue has been addressed by setting aside time once a month for questioning secretaries of state sitting in the Lords.

What role could Cameron play in Sunak's government?

Cameron's appointment has been seen as an indictment of the current crop of Conservative MPs, suggesting a lack of suitable candidates among them for one of the great offices of state.

Supporters of the move, however, say they hope it might remind centrist Conservative voters of why they voted Tory in 2015. This is particularly so with southern voters, who the Conservatives may lose to the Liberal Democrats in the upcoming general election. 

Cameron's diplomatic experience could also "signal a desire on PM Rishi Sunak's part to focus on domestic priorities", particularly at a time when the UK is "consumed by foreign crises" both in the Middle East and in Ukraine, said the BBC's political correspondent Henry Zeffman. 

But Sunak has so far sought to set himself against previous Conservative governments and not associate himself with their policies. That task will be now be "harder still" with Cameron in his cabinet.