Lord Frost, the former Brexit negotiator, will not be in Liz Truss’s first Cabinet after turning down two roles that were offered to him, The Telegraph understands.
The ex-diplomat was sounded out about the role of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, once occupied by Michael Gove, but rejected it because Ms Truss wants the job to be far more narrowly focused than in Mr Gove’s time.
Ms Truss’s team also raised the possibility of making Lord Frost the Leader of the House of Lords, but he told them he would be the wrong person for the job because it should go to someone who has been a peer for much longer than his two years.
Although he indicated that he would be happy to serve in a Truss Cabinet if offered a job to which he felt he was suited, there has been no contact between the two sides in the past week.
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The news that the former Cabinet Office minister will be out of government will disappoint Conservative Party members, with whom he is hugely popular after playing a key role in securing agreement with the EU over Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.
He resigned from Mr Johnson’s Cabinet in December last year after criticising his stance on the Northern Ireland Protocol and what he saw as his failures to seize the opportunities of Brexit.
Despite negotiating skills that might have made him a candidate for the job of Northern Ireland Secretary, he was not offered that role and currently plays no part in the attempts to resolve the disagreement with Brussels over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Lord Frost told friends he had “no hard feelings” about his failure to land a Cabinet job and would continue to support Ms Truss in any way he could.
Having won the Tory leadership race on Monday, Ms Truss will announce her Cabinet on Tuesday after she has been formally appointed by the Queen at Balmoral.
