Sir Terence Etherton has been named as the next master of the rolls, and will take up the post at the start of October.

Etherton (pictured), who will be the first openly gay master of the rolls, is currently head of the Chancery Division as chancellor of the High Court.

He replaces Lord Dyson, who announced that he would retire from the role in February, prompting speculation over who would replace him. 

Etherton, 64, was educated at St Paul’s School, London and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar at Gray’s Inn in 1974 and appointed as a High Court judge in the Chancery Division in 2001.

Since then he has held positions as chair of the Law Commission, a lord justice of appeal and president of the Council of the Inns of Court. He became chancellor of the High Court in 2013.

Etherton was appointed as MR by an independent selection panel chaired by lord chief justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd. Supreme Court president Lord Neuberger also sat on the panel.

Lord Thomas said: ‘Following his excellent work as [High Court] chancellor over the last three years, I look forward to continuing to work with him closely in the major reform of our system of justice.’

Meanwhile, former Law Society president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff CBE has been appointed as the commissioner for standards in the House of Lords.