Minister for Europe

The Minister of State for Europe is an executive position in the Government of the United Kingdom, in charge of affairs with the European Union. The office was formerly a junior Minister of State position in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. However, when Denis MacShane was replaced by Douglas Alexander after the 2005 general election, Alexander was given a special provision to attend Cabinet meetings, a right also held by several other Ministers of State. This right has since been removed as Chris Bryant, the incumbent of the office, is appointed to the post;^[1] Bryant was also the first Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State appointed to the role.

[edit] List of Ministers for Europe

	Entered office	Left office	Political party	Prime Minister
Douglas Hurd	May 1979	June 1983	Conservative	Margaret Thatcher
Malcolm Rifkind	June 1983	11 January 1986	Conservative
Lynda Chalker	January 1986	24 July 1989	Conservative
Francis Maude	1989	28 November 1990	Conservative
Tristan Garel-Jones	28 November 1990	1993	Conservative	John Major
David Heathcoat-Amory	1993	1994	Conservative
David Davis	1994	May 1997	Conservative
Doug Henderson	5 May 1997	28 July 1998	Labour	Tony Blair
Joyce Quin	28 July 1998	28 July 1999	Labour
Geoff Hoon	28 July 1999	11 October 1999	Labour
Keith Vaz	11 October 1999	11 June 2000	Labour
Peter Hain	11 June 2000	24 October 2002	Labour
Denis MacShane	28 October 2002	11 May 2005	Labour
Douglas Alexander	11 May 2005	8 May 2006	Labour
Geoff Hoon	8 May 2006	27 June 2007	Labour
Jim Murphy	28 June 2007	3 October 2008	Labour	Gordon Brown
Caroline Flint	3 October 2008	5 June 2009	Labour
Glenys Kinnock	5 June 2009	13 October 2009	Labour
Chris Bryant	13 October 2009	Incumbent	Labour