Financial Secretary to the Treasury is a junior Ministerial post in the British Treasury. It is the 4th most significant Ministerial role within the Treasury after the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, and the Paymaster General. It is almost never a Cabinet office.
The current office holder is Mark Hoban, who took up office on 13 May 2010.
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The role of Financial Secretary to the Treasury was created in 1711 and was known as the Junior Secretary to the Treasury to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury who held the senior position. The first Junior Secretary to the Treasury is recorded as Thomas Harley who was appointed on 11 June 1711. The position has continued uninterrupted to the present day.
Notable former Financial Secretaries to the Treasury include Lord Frederick Cavendish, Austen Chamberlain, Stanley Baldwin, Enoch Powell, Nigel Lawson, and Norman Lamont.
Sir William Joynson-Hicks was the only Financial Secretary in the Cabinet, in 1923, as the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, was also Chancellor of the Exchequer.
The current responsibilities of the Financial Secretary to the Treasury include Departmental responsibility for the Office for National Statistics, and the Royal Mint. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury had Departmental responsibility for HM Customs & Excise until the merger with the Inland Revenue to form HM Revenue and Customs.
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