Attorney General's Office

The current Attorney General is Richard Hermer, Baron Hermer, a leading human rights KC who was elevated to the House of Lords specifically to take the role. He was neither an MP nor a peer when appointed in July 2024. Making someone a life peer to serve as the government's chief legal adviser is unusual. It signals that the government wanted a practising lawyer of independent standing rather than a career politician. The Solicitor General is Ellie Reeves MP.

Seven Attorneys General have served since 2010: Dominic Grieve, Jeremy Wright, Geoffrey Cox, Suella Braverman, Michael Ellis, Victoria Prentis and Richard Hermer. Grieve was later stripped of the Conservative whip by Boris Johnson over Brexit, having been one of the most principled defenders of parliamentary sovereignty during the prorogation crisis. Cox's legal advice on the Northern Ireland backstop became one of the most politically charged episodes in the Brexit process, and he was later criticised for earning substantial fees from legal work in the British Virgin Islands while serving as an MP, including working remotely from the Caribbean. Braverman served as Attorney General before becoming Home Secretary, bringing the legal and political arms of immigration policy uncomfortably close. Prentis, before her appointment, had admitted to a parliamentary committee that as a farming minister she did not read the post Brexit trade deal when it was agreed, because she was busy organising a local nativity trail. That is seven holders in sixteen years, their controversies ranging from questions of independence to questions of basic diligence.

The office's most important function is one the public almost never sees. When ministers propose a policy, draft legislation or contemplate military action, the Attorney General provides confidential legal advice on whether it is lawful. That advice is not published. Governments of all parties have argued that confidentiality allows candid assessment. Critics point out that it also prevents scrutiny. The most famous modern example remains Lord Goldsmith's advice on the legality of the Iraq War in 2003, which was revised, summarised and presented to Parliament in a form many subsequently argued misrepresented his original position. Two decades later the structural problem is unchanged. The public is asked to trust that independent legal advice is being given, but can rarely verify it.

The office also refers unduly lenient sentences to the Court of Appeal, a power that must be exercised within 28 days. It initiates proceedings for contempt of court. It manages interventions involving vexatious litigants and charity law. These are specific, measurable functions. The broader and more important function, acting as a constitutional brake on unlawful government action, is the one that is hardest to assess from outside, because the moments when an Attorney General privately tells a minister that something cannot lawfully be done are never disclosed.

The Attorney General's Office can point to genuine institutional strengths. Britain's prosecuting authorities remain largely independent and professional. The CPS and SFO operate at arm's length from political direction. Judicial independence is strong. The legal system remains internationally respected. The appointment of Hermer from outside Parliament signals an intent to restore legal credibility to the role after a period in which it was sometimes used as a political stepping stone.

The deeper question is whether the office provides enough challenge when it matters most. An Attorney General who explains government decisions after they have been made is performing a communications function. An Attorney General who prevents unlawful decisions from being made in the first place is performing a constitutional one. Because the work is confidential, the public cannot tell which version it is getting. In a democracy that says it values transparency and accountability, an office that exercises this much influence behind closed doors, and changes hands roughly every two years, is one that deserves more scrutiny than it receives. The rule of law is only as strong as the institution that enforces it inside government. The Attorney General's Office is that institution. Whether it is performing the role its constitutional position demands is a question the public is structurally prevented from answering.