 Heath invited Douglas @-@ Home to join the cabinet , taking charge of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs . In earlier centuries it had not been exceptional for a former Prime Minister to serve in the cabinet of a successor , and even in the previous fifty years Arthur Balfour , Stanley Baldwin , Ramsay MacDonald and Neville Chamberlain had done so . As of 2016 , Douglas @-@ Home is the last former premier to have served under a successor . Of Balfour 's appointment to Asquith 's cabinet in 1916 , Lord Rosebery , who had been Prime Minister in 1894 – 95 , said that having an ex @-@ premier in the cabinet was " a fleeting and dangerous luxury " . Thorpe writes that Heath 's appointment of Douglas @-@ Home " was not a luxury but an essential buttress to his administration . " 
