The new UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak started fulfilling his promise that “work would begin immediately” an hour after his meeting with King Charles III.

By the evening, two significant selections had been made: Jeremy Hunt as finance minister and Dominic Raab as deputy prime minister.

Also Read| Suella Braverman reappointment row: All you need to know

Who is Dominic Raab?

Dominic Rennie Raab is a British politician who currently serves as the United Kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor.

Raab was born in Buckinghamshire on February 25, 1974. He is 48 years old. He is the son of Jean Raab, a clothes buyer, and Peter Raab, a Marks & Spencer food manager. His father, who was Jewish, fled to Britain from Czechoslovakia when he was six years old after the Munich Agreement gave Nazi Germany control of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia.

Raab was raised in the Church of England, the faith of his English mother. He grew up in the Buckinghamshire village of Gerrards Cross. When Raab’s father died of cancer, he was twelve years old.

Raab attended Dr Challoner’s Grammar School in Amersham and volunteered on Kibbutz Sarid before studying law at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford.

Raab was elected to Parliament in 2010 to represent Esher and Walton, a then-safe Conservative seat in Surrey, with 32,134 votes and an 18,593-vote majority over his nearest rival.

He was a Conservative Party member who held the positions of first secretary of state and foreign secretary from 2019 to 2021. He served as Brexit secretary in 2018.

Also Read| UK leader Sunak faces opposition in Parliament for 1st time

Raab, who was raised in Buckinghamshire, went to Dr. Challoner’s Grammar School. He began his legal studies at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford before transferring for his master’s at Jesus College in Cambridge. Prior to working at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and as a political aide, he began his career as a lawyer at Linklaters. 

From 2015 to 2016, he held the position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Civil Liberties and Human Rights.

Raab returned to the opposition benches after Theresa May was named prime minister, but after the 2017 presidential election, he was chosen to serve as Minister of State for Courts and Justice in the second May administration. He was promoted to the position of Minister of State for Housing and Planning during the 2018 cabinet reshuffle.

Following David Davis’ resignation in 2018, Raab was appointed Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. Two weeks later, May appointed Raab as her replacement to handle domestic preparations while she handled the negotiations for Britain’s exit from the European Union. Raab’s opposition to May’s proposed Brexit withdrawal agreement led to his resignation as Brexit Secretary four months later.

Also Read| Rishi Sunak’s cabinet reshuffle: How the UK cabinet looks like now

Raab ran to succeed May after she resigned in 2019, but he lost in the second round of voting among Conservative MPs. Raab was appointed First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs after Boris Johnson was named Prime Minister.

Raab’s position was renamed Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Affairs in 2020, following the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He was promoted to the positions of Deputy Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor in the 2021 cabinet shuffle. His positions in the Sunak ministry were renewed.

Erika Rey, a Brazilian marketing executive who in 2020 worked for Google, is married to Raab. They reside in Thames Ditton, Surrey, with their two children.