What exactly is a “Senior Minister of State”? Does anyone know?

Earlier today we noted that weeks after it was announced, the Government Growth Committee doesn’t seem to have met yet – or if it has, no-one seems to know who is on it, including Cabinet ministers.

Yet it seems that isn’t the only loose end that the government have failed to tie up since the reshuffle. Andrew Pierce notes in the Daily Mail this morning:

“When Baroness Warsi was sacked as Tory chairman by David Cameron and switched to the Foreign Office, she insisted on the title Senior Minister of State. But what does it mean? It seems William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, hasn’t got a clue. Almost two months after the reshuffle, Hague, in a written answer to the Labour MP Kevan Jones last week, said the ‘responsibilities will be published in due course’.”

That question was two weeks ago. We’re now nearly two months since the reshuffle, and Warsi’s “responsibilities” still don’t seem to have been clarified- unless you include this list from the Foreign office website, which is vague, and doesn’t seem any different to a conventional minister of state. So what is so “senior” about it?

What exactly is a “Senior Minister of State”? Does anyone know? Or is it just what they call you when you get demoted…?